I’ve told all these stories before. But given that I’m about to turn 35 two days after this email goes out, they feel… relevant.

One

I got my Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering largely by accident.

After coming to Washington University in St. Louis for its biomedical engineering program and failing at the biomedical engineering program, I was fortunate enough that Washington University was also uniquely gifted with a Systems Science and Engineering program, which to this day is really just a fancy way of saying applied mathematics, but neither here nor there at this point. The program was closely entwined with the electrical engineering department, to the point where when my advisor was looking at my transcript late junior year and said “you’re three intro classes away from from a Bachelor and you qualify for the Robotics minor. You want them?”

To which I replied, “I already have a major and two other minors.”

To which he replied, “What’s that got to do with what I’m asking about?”

I would proceed to graduate with two Bachelors and three minors. I can also tell you with absolutely certainty that despite being intro level electrical engineering classes, I did exceedingly poorly because I do not have a lick of intuition for physics and physical systems. I absolutely got my degree on a C-, and I am not proud of that and thankfully, I never had to do anything electrical.

The one thing I have retained is that resistors in sequence, you add, and resistors in parallel, you add their reciprocals.

Two

The tech conference I went to at the beginning of the month had several notable interactions, although there was one in particular on the last day that stuck out to me.

A senior level engineer, someone who clearly had lots of experience in his field and someone who had clearly bought into the AI hype machine, was lauding the current wave of AI tech. Talking about how he trusts but verifies, but that he starts out his morning sending 15 or so Claude agents to start his day while he’s still in bed. He would later recount that he actively yelled at his kids’ school teachers for not teaching them about AI. “This is the way the world works now. I will not have them fall behind.”

I have a Master of Science in Education. I haven’t taught formally, but I have taught informally, and I know far too many pedagogical principles and theories of learning, and setting aside the fact that the technology’s entire foundation is unethical and illegal and the fact that hallucinations are a natural consequence of technology (which mind you, we shouldn’t) simplifying learning to ask a question, get a response does not actually help you learn. Learning comes from struggle. The friction, the resistance, it what helps ingrain things into the neural network.

At the end of the interview, I ask this senior level engineer “do you have concerns about your younger engineers using this technology, this easy-button, and not verifying the output or not being able to verify the output because they do not have the skills or knowledge to do so because they’re reliant on the tech.”

To which he said, “It is my single greatest fear as an engineer.”

I really thought about pressing the issue and unpacking the sheer amount of cognitive dissonance, but that would have required much more thought and energy than I was capable of on day 3.

Three

My favorite Star Trek captain is Jean-Luc Picard. Now, I did not watch a lot of Star Trek growing, but I watched enough and The Next Generation was the one that was on-air when I had the wherewithal to understand stories. I liked the gravitas Patrick Stewart brought to the character. I liked LaVar Burton as Geordi LaForge and Jonathan Frakes as Riker (and as I’m typing this out, I see that some part of this probably has to do with recognizing some of them Reading Rainbow and Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction). Shocking absolutely no one, I was a big fan of Brent Spiner’s Data as well. And I was fascinating by the Borg.

Resistance is futile.

There is something to be said about confronting assimilation. There is something to be said about futility and expression and free will. There is something to be said about how uncanny sameness drives you mad, say to the point of blocking 1000+ Instgram accounts and counting for using GenAI. There is something to be said about a technovirus commandeering governments and heroes valiantly fighting to reclaim control of the system. Sorry for the abstract spoilers of season 3 of Picard.

Four

I’m writing this four days before my birthday. 35 is not looking particularly kind between not quite a break up, a hostile job market, and a job that is trying to convince me that an evil technology is the solution to all my problems. It’s not. A lot of my problems are people. People not caring enough to do a little bit work themselves. People trying to convince me that giving into billionaires’ hype machines is somehow okay.

If I’m wrong (and given that I have only become more resistant and more recalcitrant over the last four years, I do not think I am wrong), then I will either:

• Be miserable using the unethical, unlawful, unsustainable tech to become a shitty copyeditor for AI trained on my good writing and subject to even more work in the same amount of time.

• Be out of the job because a statistical average output of all my previous good quality work is enough to pass off as viable and they don’t need me complaining and leaching a salary (never mind that the token cost is almost certainly not worth it).

I too would love to not be loud and annoying about this. But unfortunately, hyper-vigilance is a bitch and now as I wallow in the wake of personal and professional woes as I am forced to reckon with a new reality that is not particularly kind, I’m also adversarial enough that I’m going to live off my spite.

Five

I thought about doing a summer mixtape. The algorithm served up a track called “I’m About to Lose It But I’m Doing Fine” by Frugit. It’s one of those songs that seems utterly appropriate.

However, because we live in a hellscape, when I looked at the music video, something felt off and based on research, there are suspicions that Frugit is actually AI generated in some capacity, which certainly is not helped by their own coyness about it and honestly that was enough to pass on the idea.

And it sucks right? That the foundation is so rotten. That being stalwart means digging your feet in on hills you must be willing to die on/kill on even as the the ground swells around you, taunting it’s inevitable you know?

But what I know is I rather be resistant. Because I don’t know it things will get better, it will all work out. But I do know that if the options are being sad about it or being angry about, guess I’m going to be angry. Guess I’m gonna roll up my sleeves. Guess I’m going get ready for that long, drag out, bare knuckle type of fight.

“It’ll be okay” is not a self-fulfilling prophecy. “It’ll be okay” is a direct threat to the universe.*

*Am I little upset that my conclusion appears to be negative parallelism? Yes. Am I going to rewrite it? Fuck no. These constructs of words were ours first and if anyone accuses me of text extruding, they can fuck off to the sound of my boisterous laughter.