I refuse to believe that relying on AI is an advantage; they keep saying we will be left behind if we stay human, but maybe I want to be left behind from a life spent delegating my thoughts and feelings and decisions to machines.

If I’m honest I’ve been feeling hopeless lately. Sometimes I feel like giving up. What’s the point of writing when AI will soon automate the book I just spent years on, and generate my blog posts faster than I ever could? What’s the point of improving at anything? There is nothing impressive left to do or to learn. This is all there is, staring down the barrel of a life spent inputting and prompting. It feels like the worst time to try.

Then I started thinking about the next generation, and how bad that feeling must be. Why learn to drive when self-driving cars are coming. Why bother to code or start a company. Why learn to draw, why practice guitar, why study photography, why struggle through academic research. But as I thought about this happening in every direction, all at once, it began to look like an opportunity. When so few seem interested in being a person, isn’t that the best time to be one? Maybe this is a moment for optimism. You just have to be human.

You have to speak like a human, for a start. When everyone else is grinding out birthday messages and apologies and love letters with AI, use your voice. Stumble over your words, get them jumbled. Write a wedding speech or a birthday toast that rambles and goes off track and makes people laugh and frown and remember. Put words together that don’t fit or perfectly flow, get your metaphors tangled and grammar confused. As everyone generates the same college essays and job applications, say something real, put something on the line. In an automated world where everything is so bland and boring, your messages and vows and condolences and eulogies will glimmer, will glow with their humanity. There’s never been a better time to touch the hearts of people, you just have to be human.

Think like a human, too. Have your own opinions, convictions, beliefs you are brave enough to defend. Because along with this robotic voice, it feels as if everyone has this agreeableness now too, this neutered way of seeing the world. Nobody wants to be distinctive, nobody wants to risk disapproval. So when everyone is getting these fawning, flattering responses from AI bots, be sincere. Be skeptical, critical, have preferences and judgements. Stand up for good art and good ideas and good choices. I am so bored of hearing that’s valid! and you do you! not just from AI bots but from people, human beings, those who have blunted themselves and their beliefs. It’s so dull, this refusal to say anything; I’m desperate for human judgement, starving for taste and conviction. Develop your own opinions, especially if you’re young; don’t outsource your thinking before you’ve even lived, don’t try to win approval at the expense of being human. You won’t be liked by everyone but that’s the point, no human ever has been. Not everyone will get you, you won’t be for everyone, but you will be someone.

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