Alive

Oliver Burkeman on the insufferable edicts to use AI in your work: “The obvious answer, of course, is that you might have no choice: that given what’s coming, anyone who wants to keep food on the table must give up their dreams of aliveness, and buckle down to placating the machines instead. I have two things to say about that, the first of which is that I don’t believe it: that aliveness is so central to meaningful human experience that there’ll always be a market for those who can cultivate it, embed it in what they create, foster it in institutions and organizations, and bring people together to experience it. But the second is that even if I’m hopelessly wrong about that, and the direst predictions about AI disruption come true, then navigating through life by aliveness is still the right choice, because that’s what makes life worth living.”

To put this another way: even if you believe that shackling yourself to the machines is the only way to keep food on the table, you’re still coming to harm. Any choice you make here isn’t between safety and harm but between different kinds of harm. And maybe the threats are just that—sneering words spit from the mouths of bullies. Maybe it’s time to call their bluff.