Something's rotten in humanity's mindset and it's probably been there since forever: the willingness to submit to stupid quantitative objectives, or comply with garbage rules just to move on without questioning if the system is rigged at the core.
It's never been so true now that AI is here and is reshaping the world we live in. And as always, everyone is compelled to speak their short-sighted, loosely based, terrible opinion on whatever social media platform they are the most familiar with. AI is going to take our jobs! AI is going to make us dumber! It's going to erode what makes us human!
How about you unplug your keyboard for once and actually look at what you've been doing online? You've been a slave to the machine way before ChatGPT was the hot thing to follow in 2023. The vague posts and subtweets on X just to ragebait (do you realize the meaning of the word!) the people around you. The high-contrast, mouth-agape, pointing at something off-screen thumbnails on YouTube. Putting the link in the first comment on LinkedIn like you're sneaking it past a bouncer. You've submitted to the ever-changing whims of algorithms you didn't write and can't inspect.
And it works! That's why you keep doing it. Willingly. Eagerly. You even paid for the privilege! Actual money, handed to charlatans who claim they figured the algorithm out. How low can you go in the name of the holy engagement?
You're not even the worst one out there, because you have pretty much no impact as an isolated individual anyway. But then come the people with the loudest AI takes: founders, executives, self-proclaimed thought leaders, whose first instinct is claiming how much AI is an amazing opportunity to fire people reduce costs, which tells you everything you need to know about their relationship with their customers: they've been having an affair with a spreadsheet long ago.
Recognize yourself in any of this? I already see you drawing excuses from the same old stove: that's what you need to do nowadays to acquire followers to turn them into customers, right?
Right (sigh). It does work. But if your default is to follow whatever the system rewards, don't be surprised when it starts shaping what you say. Give it enough time and it won't just shape what you say, it will narrow what you even think is worth saying.
Here's a bright idea: next time you feel the urge to drop your take about the current hot thing on the internet, how about you talk to an AI first. Like, challenge your own opinion for ten minutes before making it everyone else's problem. You might learn something. You might even change your mind. Or at the very least, you'll post something that doesn't make the rest of us roll our eyes.
That is, unless you'd rather keep polishing the machine's claws. In which case, carry on.