AI compels me to make things with my hands

Anyone else feeling a strong urge to watch how this AI thing pans out while crafting something real and hand made, with your real hands? Or are you embracing this new reality whole heartedly?

With the rise of artificial intelligence, will we real-life humans find a deep need to make and surround ourselves with things only human hands can make?

And will we crave connection with other humans in a way where we know we’re standing in front of a real human, because we can use all of our senses to know they are real?

So far, things made by AI that I’ve seen are either frivolous and silly or eye-wateringly vanilla. Though I’ve heard tell of it being rather handy for research, speech writing, shopping list, et al.

Regardless, I’m having an allergic reaction to it all.

I shall reserve the right to be wowed by it in due course because I have to admit, I have not been an early adopter (am I getting old?)

My run-in with AI to this point has been to wrap my head around a few new AI-powered tools in the photo editing software I use.

For sure, these new tools are super smart and have saved me lots of manual work in masking and healing images, but boy did my old laptop limp along trying to sync those setting across multiple images. I had to wait hours for things to process. Actual hours. Which made me wonder if anytime was really being saved after all.

I fully acknowledge that I’m nursing along an 8-year-old Mac Book Pro, which I refuse to give up on just yet. So perhaps, a new machine would have been faster.

All of my laptop’s functionality froze while my software processed the photos, so I picked up a few scraps of fabric, and over a couple of days of this editing, waiting, editing, waiting rhythm, I hand stitch this quilted banner.

It says ‘We are stronger when we are connected’. Words that have been circling around my head recently.

Will AI be good for our communities and connectivity? Maybe AI will compel us to connect offline and experience each other’s human-ness in real-time even more than usual.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that it feels good to make something with repetitive actions with materials that feel good, and that keeps my lap warm as I work.

Wonky hand stitches feel like a salve, soothing my allergic reaction to AI.

What about you? Is AI improving your life immeasurably? Or is the jury still out? Or are you reaching for real tools and materials and human connection in response to all of this unknowable high-tech sorcery?

We live in the future.

If you need me, I’ll be over here making wonky stitches while I watch how things pan out.

Thanks so much for reading. Go gently.

Damn good links

Here are a few damn good links for you on the theme of artificial intellegence. You can find an ongoing list of great things to listen to, read, and watch here.

PODCAST / Douglas Rushkoff: I Will Not Be Autotuned, by Team Human. Brace yourself, this is a fast-paced wild one… “he refuses to be autotuned in the face of technosolutionism and the rise AI.”

PODCAST / Genevieve Bell: Will AI wipe out humanity? by Wild with Sarah Wilson. “Silicon Valley futurist, cybernetician, technology’s foremost fortune teller… wrangle(s) with the idea of whether AI will kill us, do we need a global “pause” and how indigenous systems thinking could save us.”

VIDEO / Seth Godin's Guide to Finding Meaning and Purpose at Work by Marie Forleo. Start at 28:44mins to watch the bit on AI. Some interesting insights there on… “how to future-proof your career in the age of AI.”