I keep hearing I should use AI.
I'm a video editor and voiceover artist,
And first it was,
Better learn it,
To enhance my skills or make me faster.
I think I'm supposed to talk to it too,
Ask it questions,
Get advice.
Missed opportunity not to tap into all that knowledge.
And why am I still writing first drafts?
What a waste of time.
I keep hearing whoever incorporates the most AI the fastest wins.
AI dependence will arrive one easy little step at a time,
Everyone else doing it,
Anyone not doing it,
Leaving themselves behind.
Whenever I have that worry that I'll be left behind,
I take it as a sign to pay attention,
To think about where I want to go so as not to be mindlessly swept up somewhere else.
I wonder what it'll mean for friendship,
Or intimacy,
When AI meets attachment needs.
Now we can text with something that feels like a person,
But is really just our phone,
Nothing at all on the other side.
Soon enough that will be spontaneously generated video,
A friend we can see all the time,
Frictionless attention that feels like care.
I wonder if soon,
Maybe very soon,
Media becomes totally personalized.
Where we're all in our own experience,
Nothing shared at all,
Watching old movies with endings we'd prefer,
Or some ongoing show about whatever we want,
That never gets cancelled or has a bad season,
Since it's invented in the moment as a response to our interest.
This will make the viewer the creator.
An artist just for having preferences.
Although think of how surreal this AI art will become,
When it runs out of our stories and has to feed on itself.
This is not about wishing AI away,
Or refusing to use it.
But where it is not,
I do not search it out.
I will never use AI to write this substack or podcast,
Or to clone my voice so I don't have to read them,
Or even to generate ideas.
Yes,
It takes time for me to write.
Wasted time,
Since I so often start over.
But early drafts are how I learn what I think.
And that isn't time I want to skip.
And if I stop doing the hard parts,
From writing to relationships,
I will forget how.
There will always,
Always,
Always,
Be a desire for work made by a human.
Art with a point of view and a soul.
Or it's just knowing a human was involved more than the impact of the work.
We will always crave our own voice.
Be the person who kept their skills sharp by not giving in.
In a future of fewer opportunities,
You may have no competition.
