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This week’s question comes to us anonymously:

I did my job fine before AI came along. Now my workplace ‘suggests’ we use it. How do I say no?

Sigh. Fuck. Fine. OK. Buckle up.

Let’s talk about the 1990 Texas governor’s race.

In 1989, I moved from Philadelphia to Austin for graduate school. Having grown up in the middle of an East Coast city and suddenly finding myself in what was still, at the time, either a small city or a big town—depending on your world view—was… jarring. It was neither better, nor worse. It was just… different. So mostly I watched. I watched how other people behaved. I watched how other people interacted with one another. And I looked for cues on how to behave in this new place. (First parenthetical aside: In Philadelphia, when two people cross on the sidewalk you nod. The nod is an acknowledgement of safe passage. Much like clinking glasses during a toast started as proof that I had not poisoned your drink, nodding was reassurance that I was not going to turn around and stab you after we’d crossed. I was raised to nod. My first morning in Texas, I went for a walk to explore my new neighborhood and someone came walking in my direction. Just as I was preparing to nod, he bolted out “Good morning!” in a loud reassuring way not unlike Foghorn Leghorn, had Foghorn been raised a little further west. So that was new. In San Francisco, where I live now, people neither nod nor say “Good morning!” They purse their lips, as if they’re disappointed that they aren’t crossing paths with someone of a higher net worth.)

Shortly after I moved to Austin, Texas decided to elect a new governor. Mainly because the current governor, who is not important to this story, got caught with his hand in the wrong cookie jar. The Democrats decided to run Ann Richards, who I knew nothing about at the time, but certainly grew to admire. The Republicans, for their part, decided on a good-ole-boy cattle rancher from Midland named Clayton Williams. (Second parenthetical aside: At this point in history, this point being 1990, Texas had elected exactly one (not a typo) Republican governor since Reconstruction. One. So when they tell you that Texas has historically been a deep red state that is bullshit. It has recently elected a slew of Republicans, which is as much about gerrymandering as it is about any change in voter sentiment. Much like when California is described as a solid blue state and I remind people that we gave the world both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, which my neighbors love being reminded of, even as they vote for Daniel Lurie and vote down propositions to tax billionaires fairly.) (Wait, open the parenthetical back up. As long as we’re here—I should make note that Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, and Barbara Jordan were, at one point, the strongest political trinity in the state of Texas, and I have no particular reason to name all three of them today, but I enjoy doing it, and you should read up on all three of them.)

Anyhoo… Clayton Williams was very much a Texas “good ole boy” who made lots of money on oil, cattle, telecom, and other Texas-like businesses. He liked smiling, shaking people’s hands, being on television, and telling jokes. For her part, Ann Richards also enjoyed those things, and as an added bonus enjoyed—and excelled at—civil service. The media, both state and national, had a great time with the campaign, dubbing it “Claytie vs The Lady” (cringe). This all came to a grinding halt when Clayton Williams decided to kick the ball into his own goal and pronounced—unprovoked, mind you—that rape was like the weather and that "if it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.” In 1990, even in Texas, this was enough to kill a campaign. Which it did. Ann Richards went on to be a fine governor. (Fun fact: her daughter Cecile Richards went on to be the president of Planned Parenthood from 2006–2018. Sadly, we’ve lost them both.)

Now why the fuck did I just write three long paragraphs about the Texas gubernatorial campaign when I’m supposed to be writing about AI? Because the language we are using about AI adoption is very similar to how Clayton Williams described rape.

“It’s happening whether you want it or not.”

“Better get on board if you know what’s good for you.”

“If you want to keep working here, this is what it takes.”

“It’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”

Am I comparing AI to rape? I am not. I am, however, comparing the language we use when discussing AI adoption to the language of rape culture. It’s the language of coercion. Language that implies a lack of choice and reminds you of the power those who are using it have over you. A lack of agency. It’s language that does not rely on consent, but instead the idea that we are bereft of choices, so we might as well get with the program. A program which is being foisted on us by—if you take a look at the group photo—men. And not just men, but men who like to cozy up to—and hand awards to—a convicted rapist. (Third parenthetical aside: in 2002, when the AI bubble was still a misfiring synapse in Marc Andreesen’s very large head (probably a result of eating a twin in utero) an AI Summit was held in the Virgin Islands. Specifically in the Virgin Island that was home to Jeffrey Epstein, which was convenient because the summit happened at his retreat. And yes, he footed the bill. The fact that Jeffrey Epstein was curious about a technology that eliminated consent should surprise no one.) These are not men with a lot of introspection. In fact, they proudly tout their lack of introspection. Which is a mark of a sociopath.

We’ve talked a lot about whether AI is “good” or “bad” and we should continue to do so. But it’s also worth having a conversation, or two, or a thousand, about how—and why— it’s being rolled out, at this particular moment in time, by this particular set of people, for whom the language of coercion appears to come naturally. And why people are fighting back against it.

Designers are notoriously disloyal, which I mean as a positive. Let me explain. When I was coming up as a designer, we used Photoshop to do all of our comps, a tool famously not made for doing comps. But it worked, if not perfectly. Every few years another tool would come around to knock Photoshop off its perch, we would try it for a few days, and inevitably sigh and go back to Photoshop. Not out of loyalty, mind you. But because whatever the other tools offered weren’t enough to offset the learning curve. Until the day Figma showed up. We tried it, and the majority of designers never looked back. Entire companies switched to Figma seemingly overnight. And here’s the important part: this didn’t happen because of some top-down mandate, but because the workers found a tool that made their job easier. It was, for the most part, a worker-driven shift. Like I said, we’re disloyal. We’re happy to adopt tools that make our lives easier.

And while there are certainly workers who’ve embraced AI tools—I’ll let them provide their own reasoning elsewhere—what I’m seeing is the opposite of a worker-driven shift. Management is driving the shift to AI. And it’s going as well as you’d expect. Let me give an example, in addition to this week’s question.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend who works at a fairly well-regarded company in San Francisco. They’re an engineer. They’ve been working as an engineer at this company for a few years. They enjoy what they do, they enjoy working with their team, and from what they’ve told me, they do their job well. I believe them. A few months ago they received a mandate from management to start using Claude, and everyone got their allotment of tokens. Sure, they were open to it. So they asked management for guidance.

“How do you want us using it?”

“What can it help us to do better?”

“Where are you seeing room for improvement, and how do you see Claude helping us improve in those areas?”

These are good questions. They’re not the questions of haters or boosters. They’re questions of workers open to doing their jobs better. The answers they got back from management only qualified as answers because they immediately followed a question. They were told that from now on their jobs would be measured by how much they used Claude. I’m sure lots of readers are nodding along right now because they’re either in that situation, or sitting at home in the aftermath of that situation. For reasons that had nothing to do with the workers’ efficiency, or client satisfaction, or anything that even vaguely resembled the ghost of a metric, the entire team had to change how they worked, and the tools they used, for secret reasons. Naturally, morale took a nosedive.

“It’s happening whether you want it or not.”

Earlier this week I did a Q&A with the graduating class at Glasgow School of Art. I love talking to students. But more importantly, I like listening to students. I want to know what they care about. I want to hear their concerns. I’ve been doing an annual Q&A with this particular school for a few years now. Usually their questions come in a range of topics. This year there was one topic. They were concerned about AI. And again, it wasn’t whether AI was good or whether AI was bad, but how AI was being used to decimate a workforce they were about to enter. Most of them feel like they’re graduating into a field where they’re no longer welcome. We have a new generation of people who want to do the work, they’re excited to do the work, they want to prove they can do the work.

We’re going to lose these kids.

One of the things the students mentioned is they go out into social media and see “design leaders”—people they look up to—talking about how this shit is inevitable, and how it’s coming whether you want it or not, how we’re going to get left behind if we don’t comply, etc., etc., etc. And it makes them feel hopeless. Of course it does. This field (or fields, whatever) is now describing the future in the language of coercion. Because this appears to be something that the leaders in this field are very comfortable with. Force. They look out over a decimated workforce, struggling to pay their rent and they call it abundance. (For who?!)

These fucks have decided that the future is already written, and that it is written in their favor. These sad sociopathic fucks are attempting to write a future where everything and everyone behaves in a way that benefits them. Where no one gives them lip. Where no one tells them no. Where no one defies them. Where consent has been taken off the table. Where they can get what they want, from who they want, when they want it.

And that you should just “relax and enjoy it” when they thrust their vision of a future upon you. For which I would like to remind you that very few of you had any idea who Clayton Williams was before you read this essay. Because he was a loser. And because the future remains unwritten.

TL;DR: “No” is—and has always been—a complete sentence.

🙋 Got a question? Need an answer? Ask it! This newsletter runs on your questions.

📓 I’ve got a whole book of collected essays that came from this newsletter you just enjoyed. It’s called How to die (& other stories), and I’ve been told that it helps people get through shit times. Grab a Gilly pin and I’ll ship ‘em out together!

🥝 Speaking of which—the virtual book tour is making a stop in Auckland, New Zealand where I will chat with the amazing Sacha Judd, whose newsletter very much worth subscribing to! It’s either happening on June 11 or June 12, depending on which side of the International Date Line you’re on. It’s free, but you need to register.

🆘 I also do 1-on-1 sessions if you need advice. Just me and you.

🖤 RIP Marjane Satrapi. Persepolis is required reading.

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