“Because people don’t really think anymore, they just react.”

If that’s your response to genuine criticism, rather than self-reflection, then you are three steps removed from both reality and yourself. If there’s one thing I do, it’s think. Probably too much.

If you cannot accept the fact that you might be in the wrong, then you are not actually an open person. You like to seem like one. It’s maybe a core tenet of the person you project into the world. Your persona. But it’s not who you are a person. You’re simply ascribing to the narrative you like best. And that can be fine—you do you, etc.

But.

The original post someone wrote was, essentially, “the AI algorithm says I’m super positive! YAY ME.” The AI that you enabled and sought out. This is not unlike surrounding yourself with dipshit yes people. (AI cannot analyze things—it’s pattern recognition.) And yeah, if you want to hold yourself up like a pinnacle of positively, go ahead.

But it rings false. Because no one who is actually positive needs to state that out loud. Guess what? People know it already. They can feel it, see it. There is evidence, not some AI bit of thievery (willingly letting some gen AI tool assess your content is promoting theft and you are also robbing yourself) designed to make you look/feel good. Some gold-star nonsense manufactured by a bunch of ones and zeros that are tremendously bad for the environment.

If you need that kind of validation, maybe what you actually need is therapy.

Here’s the thing, though. We all like to feel good about ourselves and how we move through the world. Feeling good about our actions and presence is a real, human drive. There is such validation when we know our actions are just. That we have done the right thing. That we are doing things that are in line with our values.

But if letting a plagiarism factory scan your output (output! like you’re a dot-matrix human) is somehow a cookie you give yourself, what are you actually doing? Because I don’t know.

And listen, I know that the internet is rife with folks who like to tear other people down. (Someone recently told me that I shouldn’t throw stones, because coffee is bad for the environment. And baby, no. The whataboutism bullshit does not work on me. You, a strange man-baby defending a full grown adult celebrity woman, cannot hurt me. Say less.) But there is a difference between being shitty for no reason and pointing out a real problem for an actual reason.

I don’t think anyone in the arts should use generative AI ever. I have never used ChatGPT or Gemini. I’ve never opted in to any AI tool on a platform I use. They’re made from stolen art. If you feed something into it, you’re feeding a theft-machine and for what? A momentary blip of accomplishment? Honey, you pushed a button and made your art a scantron test. That’s…well, disheartening at best.

I’ve been irritated as all hell about generative AI since someone showed me a short story they “wrote” with it, and I had to calmly explain why you shouldn’t, maybe, do that to a writer.

I’ve seen folks I respect casually use it to cut corners and transform art they actually made into output. I cannot accurately express my rage, but if I were to try, I’d write a poem about it. And not ask AI to tell me how to make art out of the way I feel.

Because art is made by people. Even the bits we hate, because a pattern-matching machine has never had its heart broken. Has never lost a loved one. Has never grieved someone who is still alive. Has never sat vigil in a hospital room. Has never cried on the bathroom floor. Has never kissed someone questionable or wanted to kiss someone they shouldn’t. Has never gotten on a train with hope in their heart. Has never laughed, drunk, at 3am, sitting on a kitchen counter eating bad, but still delicious, pizza. Has never smelled a damn library book. Has never smiled at a text on their phone, like it’s a forehead kiss.

Using AI to analyze your online presence won’t tell you who you really are, but it sure will tell me a lot. And that’s quite enough of that.

XOXO

What I’m watching: Emily in Paris

What I’m reading: Polo by Jilly Cooper

What I’m listening to: “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call” cover by Bea Keller

What I’m excited for: being a couch goblin and eating snacks while I forget what day it is or the last time I wore hard pants

Tarot card for today: 9 of wands — a long, tiring journey and it feels like you should’ve accomplished more by now, but good shit is right around the corner. Chin up. Keep going, what you want is right ahead. One more step.