The one thing I will never ever do.
Fear.
I don’t like to admit my fears for two reasons.
I don’t want to give power to the word “fear”.
I don’t think I have any.
But, I guess I do. Because every time I’m encouraged to “pop into” a forearm stand (lemme tell you, the Mexico City yoga community is ob-se-ss-ed with inversions and I’m over here like, pigeon pose please) I feel a twinge of it. The mere thought of partaking in a crazy act like bungee jumping (or ziplining in South Africa) causes significant alarm. My dwindling bank account stirs up some rather undeniable sensations of apprehension. Dying before having made it to China stokes my internal fires.
Artificial Intelligence is, as we say in South Jersey, giving me agita. And the agita is coming from fear.
(As per Harvard’s blog: Agita is heartburn, acid indigestion, an upset stomach or, by extension, a general feeling of upset. The word is Italian-American slang derived from the Italian “agitare” meaning “to agitate.”)
For a lot of people, being scared acts as a motivator.
Not for me. My motivator is jealousy, but that’s for a future love letter.
AI is a reality that I have to contend with. I can’t hide from it and I could refuse to partake in it but that’s only going to stress me out. So I have to find a way to use it to my advantage.
Which I will do. Read my latest article on Medium (it will take you 4 minutes, according to the site’s AI-powered timing calculator) if you care about how I plan to do that.
Anyway Saturday night I WENT OUT AFTER 8PM and had a few tequilas while chatting with mah girl’s new boyfrann about AI & ChatGPT (OMG I am a f*cking nerd, aren’t I) and he predicted something that I found VERY insightful.
One day in the probable near future, it’s likely that we will be presented with two kinds of content.
AI-powered
Human-powered
And that content creators may have to be up front about which you are reading.
Don’t you love that? I LOVE THAT.
So this short little carta de amor is a simple declaration that while I will be using AI for other purposes, I will never ever ever use it to craft your almost-weekly-newsletter. These, my dears, will forever be human-generated ramblings concocted by me and only me.
I’m not actually sure how you feel about that. Good? I hope?
With love,
Bethany
