I say it frequently and feel it far more often than I say it: I want off the ride, or I want to be on a different ride, or I want to build my own ride. Some days, perhaps many, I loath the time period in which we are living. I dread the bubble that, when it pops, will drown us all. Something like 30% of the economy is tied up in the AI bubble. Meanwhile, the world is burning and we seem to be adding fuel to the fire at an unprecedented pace while simultaneously using up all of the water that might otherwise be used to extinguish the flames. In California, researchers have discovered that the land is sinking because during one of the bad drought years, we pumped too much water from the underground aquifers. But sure, let’s increase housing density and build more data centers. I want off the ride – preferably before it jumps the track and crashes us all into that great flaming, waterless, sinkhole of a funhouse next to the Ferris wheel.
I can’t explain it. I feel unmotivated and oddly hedonistic. I want to spend my time in bars and at concerts not thinking about the world. At the same time, I want to be…
And that’s the problem. I don’t know what I want to be. I feel as though I’m at an inflection point – maybe ready to make another shift. I feel as though I’m losing my grip on reality or that I’m living in a tactile world that’s slowly disappearing and too quickly changing over to an illusory AI-driven world. Yet, there’s still sunshine, moderate temperatures, and good vibes in my immediate, physical vicinity. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so blissfully conflicted in my life. I didn’t expect to still be pondering the question, “what do I want to do with my life?” – not at this age.
I work a part-time job. It keeps me afloat, but it is not sustainable – especially in San Francisco. As such, I’m looking for work but find myself uninspired by the prospect of work. I read job description after job description and find myself saying, I could do that, but I don’t want to do that. I’m slowly becoming Bartleby the scrivener with his famous catchphrase, “I would prefer not to.” I can’t decide what I should do – get another part-time job? try for another executive position? take something (anything) that will pay me enough so that I might eventually escape the rat race? find work that will help me live my ethics more ethically?
While having dinner with a few friends, we began talking about AI. One of the friends, an English Professor, said it’s a mess. He can’t really assign writing homework anymore. Everyone is using it for everything. Everyone, but me that is. When I shared that aside from Google’s forced AI summaries, I still haven’t used AI (meaning Claude or ChatGPT), another friend said, you’re gonna have to use it or be left behind. I said I’m trying to decide if that’s the hill I want to die on. If I were independently wealthy, I wouldn’t mind being left behind. I think I’d love to be left behind. Unfortunately, I’m not independently wealthy. The problem, for me, is that I see AI as an ethical/moral quagmire. I don’t doubt that it has positive uses, but I’m afraid that it’s primary usage will be for more frivolous tings like generating memes, mocking people, harassing people, or performing tasks like writing that don’t need, or aren’t terribly improved by, AI. I recently read a job posting that said, “we are an AI first company” – it will be used in every aspect of the job. I prefer not to. I’m not sure how I would feel about working for a company that forced me to use AI – especially knowing its environmental impact. A more accurate posting might have said we are an environment killing company, every aspect of the job will slowly kill the environment. See that, I fixed it for them and I didn’t even have to use AI.
AI is only part of the problem. Fairness fatigue is another part. For over a decade, I’ve worked on social issues related to poverty and hunger. For over a decade, I’ve been trying in small ways through my choice of avocation to make some part of the world better or more bearable. I have days when I’m not sure I can keep doing that – not under current circumstances. By current circumstances, I mean the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. By current circumstances, I mean the utter lack of fairness in the world. By current circumstances, I mean a world full of corruption and hypocrisy – a world increasingly devoid of compassion and ethics. It seems ludicrous to be working on issues of justice and poverty and basic human rights when the president of the United States is running one of the most blatantly corrupt and scandalous administrations this country has ever seen. Tr*mp has made over a billion dollars on crypto schemes since taking office. He hands out pardons to criminals and grifters and hands out government contracts to cronies and relatives… all while cutting funding to programs like the ones I’ve been running and supporting. It seems ludicrous to be fundraising for pennies while the world’s richest continue to hoard billions and the latest tech boom is about to mint a new cohort of millionaires to whom my sector will be beholden. It seems crazy to be fighting for fair wages and affordable healthcare when the people opposed to such policies blatantly abuse the system. Mitch McConnell, a staunch opponent of universal healthcare, is allowed to continue “serving” as a paid senator despite being incapacitated for over a month. Tom Kean Jr., a republican representative from New Jersey, took months off (all paid) for depression – yet voted against mandating paid sick leave for workers. The gall of these fuckers is astonishing. And to be clear, I’m not arguing to take away their benefits… I want everyone to have access to those kinds of benefits.
But it’s not just the politics and the AI, it’s also just the general shittiness of things. The headlines, point to an increasingly corrupt world in which trust has all but evaporated – a world that no longer values the arts or culture or human connection or decency. One headline from Fortune reads, “Gambling becomes America’s favorite pastime as Americans spend more on sports bets than movies, arts, museums, and music combined.” Combined! We are seriously losing our minds. A Washington Post headline reads, “Schools are adding pepper-spraying drones to help combat active shooters.” Nearly all of the comments on that story were along the lines of, “we will do anything to avoid enacting tougher gun laws.” A ProPublica report reads, “This MAGA influencer Runs a Charity to Teach Kids Civics. Much of the Money Goes to Him Instead.” Another headline, “Hims and Hers accused of sharing GLP-1 patients’ health data with Meta.” And yet one more reads, “SF AI Founder Says He ‘Messed Up’ After Persuading Job Seekers to Get Tattoo of Company Logo.” Yes, at an event, the CEO said that anyone who got a permanent tattoo of the company logo would get an instant interview. The new crop of tech bro CEOs, not terribly different from the old crop of tech bro CEOs, seem un-human or anti-society or just tone-deaf. They behave like frat boys or high school kids incapable of thinking beyond their immediate desires… high on their own delusions, incapable of thinking about the possible consequences of their actions. And then, of course, there are the stories of AI agents escaping their test environments and hacking into other companies. Like what the fuck are we doing? Why are the rest of us suckers playing by the rules while a handful of people get rich in their “ask for forgiveness later” bubble.
It’s not that I want to live an unethical lifestyle, but it’s getting increasingly exhausting to work in a sector that is becoming increasingly reliant on the wealth of unethical people – people like Zuckerburg whose “pervert glasses” are being used to record and harass women, and whose shitty social media platforms refuse, or have been slow, to take those video recordings down These are not people who are making the world a better place, yet these are the ones with the lion’s share of the riches. We rely on them to fund our hospitals and after-school programs because we’re too afraid to tax them out of existence. Meanwhile, inequality grows which, in turn, drives our housing costs (and living costs) through the roof. So please, someone, explain to me how this supposed meritocracy works… explain to me how hard work or behaving decently helps one “get ahead” – by which I mean survive and maybe if lucky have a few nice things. It’s like that old saying about the truth, the people trying to make the world better are still lacing up their shoes while the people making it shittier have run laps around them. The grifters seem to be running (and ruining) everything… and more and more, I want off the ride.
Unless I win the lottery or marry someone who is wealthy, getting off the ride isn’t going to happen anytime soon. On those days when the headlines feel especially bad or immoral, I daydream about simpler times. I have plenty of days when I’m trying to figure out which profession will be left unscathed by AI. Frequently, I’m trying to figure out where I can go and what work I can do that won’t force me to use a technology that I find morally questionable. I try to simplify my life so that I don’t need much and can live off of little, but the basics (housing and healthcare) keep getting more expensive. I have a friend who needs to find a place, but can’t because rents in the city are through the roof. More and more, I’m finding myself drawn to the arts and the service industry because they somehow seem more pure, more connected to joy – running an arts organization, working at a gallery, music venue, or as a bartender. And then I remember that America has a gambling problem that’s slowly swallowing all of the resources that might otherwise go to the arts or music, or good old-fashioned drunken bullshitting at the corner pub. This ride sucks.