Be genuine
I did not put a comment section on this blog. I could have, and maybe in the future I will. But for right now, it is all I can do to post something every day—or every other day. I’ve looked at other people’s blogs; those that have comment sections, have two main categories: thoughtful conversation, and dumpster fire. There’s also simple agreement (null program—does not add to discussion), and off-topic spam (spewing waste).
I do want to hear from people who respond thoughtfully. For this I have set up an email address: hfwm @ hailfellowwellmet.net . I can’t even post the email address as a single unit, though, without a bot scraping it and sending me unwanted emails for products I’ll never use and sites I’d rather didn’t exist. AI is here, people; when a computer program can be written and set up to send and receive communications as if it were a person, including auto-responses and encouragement to talk more and longer, we cannot be certain the person we’re communicating with is actually flesh-and-blood.
Moderation exists; it’s a fulltime job for AI on Facebook. Whenever I protest that one of my posts should not have been flagged, it has to be submitted twice to get to a real person. Most protests about flagged posts, I think, are reviewed by AI first. There simply are not enough humans in the world to police the wild west of the internet. When more and more posts are written/assembled by AI, even the AI moderators will be overwhelmed.
I’m writing this blog myself. These are all my words, my fingers typing them, one letter at a time. I use Facebook Messenger and Gmail for communicating with friends. Both of those platforms are now pushing AI help, asking me to let them compose messages for me, write emails, make travel plans. Google Photos takes a group of my photos and auto-assembles a slideshow of my latest travels.
What NONE of these AI helpers can do, is live my life.
Be real. Be genuine. Use helps if and when you need them, spellcheckers, auto-responders. But be present for the most important people in your life. Mean what you say, and say what you really mean.
