living a complex life
Whenever I feel really bad - like when my diseases flare up - I am glad for any inconvenience, chore, difficulty that is out of my way. Just surviving is enough work. Even just a small problem or divergence of plans is a real gut punch. I don't even want to decide what to eat, and I have brainfog, and I am just tired.
But whenever I feel good, and from a perspective of the average, the baseline, I have to say: A complex life with mundane things, difficulties, choice is important to me. Yes, there are phases when I will gladly do without that, but that's where other people come in... not tech.
Don't get me wrong, I am very grateful of what tech has made possible, and how comfortable and accessible it is to talk to others, learn, inform yourself, be creative, play games, take amazing pictures and more. I rely a lot on the ability to work from home.
What I mean is that it's getting to a point where the promises of tech cross a line for me and don't hit like they probably should. I don't want to give my control away so much. I still want to decide who or what topics I follow, I want to write my own responses, my own bio, my own posts. I want to struggle with the wording, with the correct choice of words, the grammar, the structure of everything. I don't want the perfect email that will land perfectly with whoever gets it and reads like an ad or the therapy-speak filled mess they write in TV shows' dialogue nowadays; I want it to be in my tone, with thought behind it, a little weird, and maybe you can tell I was nervous.
I want to keep my ability to research on my own - both as a skill and the opportunity to do so in search engines and databases that haven't gone to shit - and to see for myself what is important for me, instead of getting a summary handed to me. Yes, it might take infinitely longer, but on the way there, I gather so much more knowledge and context, and I remember it for longer. I want to walk through life with open eyes, not tunnel vision, and I want things to last, not to be for a fleeting moment where I needed it and then I throw it away, until the next time where I need it and I don't even remember the last time.
I don't want bots to take away the moments of boredom, struggle with choice, and mundane tasks. They suck, yes, but in the end, a choice made yourself feels much more impactful and meaningful, even if it was the wrong one. An AI will never save you from the consequences of a bad choice, no matter how small these choices are for now, and maybe that's good. Do you know these moments where everything feels out of control, it feels like you have no impact in your own life and you feel like just lashing out, burning it all down, starting anew? Giving more power to external factors will make this worse. And I firmly believe that the times of boredom, stagnation and mundane tasks serve their own purpose - slowing down, processing, giving your brain a rest to take care of other things that piled up in the meantime. Tasks for autopiloting can be a blessing.
I read someone comparing it to unopened letters in the letterbox somewhere, but I forgot where, and I agree. Many of us are so busy and distracted with things over the course of the day that the mind starts racing at night, and we struggle to fall asleep. It's like now that the time and space is there, all the unread letters you received over the day get opened. Having these little breaks throughout the day to open those letters really helps, in my experience. Doing the dishes by hand, vacuuming, putting away the laundry, sitting there doing nothing staring at the wall, journaling, blogging.
Perfectly structuring your day with no downtime, getting lost in side-hustles and making your freetime productive is the antithesis to this. But they're probably going to try to go for this, won't they? Your perfect AI day planner, creating the perfect version of yourself, in which you are spending a scientifically proven amount of time on this or that hobby, squeezing valuable time out of your busy 24h day, constant analysis and statistics to find out where you can improve and optimize even more, with the promise of making you successful. It's like the next version of these "This morning routine made me 1 million dollars" videos. I know that this sounds very enticing to a specific group of people. That also used to be me, and I understand it's almost a necessary thing to go through. I think at some point you realize that endless optimization and productivity will not save you and at times gives a false sense of security. Your intricate routines do not make way for when your body or mental give out, or when your loved ones die, and the rest of your pride goes down the drain with them.
Struggle with choice, with chores, with life and illness is an entry opportunity for the people around us to show their love. On my birthday, or when my dog died, people sent me flowers and a card, not because of some automatic reminder, Siri suggestion or with filler text, but from the heart. When I don't know what to eat or don't want to, my fiancée cooks for me and she knows all my needs and subtle preferences, no AI fridge needed. When I can't go grocery shopping or pick up my meds, she goes, no automatic reorders needed, and she usually brings a little surprise or treat. When I can't do the dishes or vacuum, she does. When my hands and feet hurt, she massages them. When I am overwhelmed by the simple choice of what to do next, she has a plan and suggests it much better and personalized than AI would. When I need help with research because it seems overwhelming, I can ask her. When my law degree gets rough, I can lie with my head on her lap and rest, and when I write my assignments, she brings me matcha and snacks. I would never want tech to take away from that, not even to supplement it, and it probably will never be able to.
It's of course difficult when there is absolutely no one, I don't want to leave that unmentioned. During the pandemic, that was the case for me... I hadn't met my fiancée yet. I saw no one from work, no one from the trade school I went to back then because both was locked down and everyone was home, no one replied to messages because they just hung out with the people in their household and I lived alone. I had no friends in my city, I had no socials and not even Discord anymore until I remade an account to get some semblance of human interaction, and it was merely a year after a breakup, and somewhat in the middle of a complicated situationship that was on/off for months. I had days where I just spent 8 hours staring into the room sitting on my sofa, catatonic.
All that to say, I also know the other side. I probably would have done a lot back then to have an AI companion to talk to, at least. If I wouldn't have my fiancée right now, I would have to spend a lot more money to get the care, love and attention I now get for free (massages, grocery delivery, etc.), and I would be grateful for tech to at least cover some of it, even if it isn't a suitable replacement. But I detailed more of that problem in AI and loneliness economy - we can't just tech our way out of every problem, in my opinion, and the thought of some robot wiping my ass in the retirement home is why I want to die with dignity on my own accord between 60-70. For me, the promises of tech and especially AI to make us enter a new time where we'll fix jobs (for CEO's and shareholders, I assume) and loneliness and knowledge is more a testament of failure than success.
To me, we went on to create and further the factors that make us sick and lonely, and now we're attempting to develop a cure that treats the symptoms, not the cause. Humanity wasn't commodifiable enough, not consistent enough, with failures, but there's the idea that you can iron out all mistakes in code and it's somehow more predictable and reliable than a human. Tech right now sees human interaction as a formula to crack, and I can't fault anyone for thinking this way, since I myself am autistic, but the reality is that there isn't. And even if there was, there is a lot we can lose along the way.
So when the bots come for our time, or choice, our struggles, leave me out of it; I will gladly accept my flawed, human experience.
Published 18 Dec, 2024