“Artificial Intelligence”

I was born in very late 1980, and while computers certainly existed during the entirety of my lifetime, I could have never imagined that I’d be alive to see a world like I currently live in here in late 2026. My goodness. It seems the whole damned world has gone bananas over it. Most people I talked to about it seem to have a slightly positive take on the technology. A few despise it, and a fair number seem to not care either way.

As for me, those who know me might say that I have a very poor opinion of AI. But to be clear, it’s not the technology itself I have an issue with, it’s what it’s being used for. You see, when AI was first sold to us, we were promised the moon. Cures for our most stubborn diseases, more efficient commerce, healthcare, life management, etc. What we got was surge pricing, an economic model designed to extract every single penny we are willing to part with, out of control algorithms that are rapidly deteriorating the fabric of society, clueless politicians, bizarre business leaders, and internet completely overrun with slop, deep fakes, the inability to separate fact from fiction in our media, hyper polarization, brain rot, etc.

Our president (of the U.S.) has gone so far as to “change the name” of Artificial Intelligence to “Superior Intelligence”, a move that was kind of unnerving, almost as though he expected us to bend a knee to this new electronic overlord. It really made me wonder if someone was pulling his strings. More practical critics of Trump seemed to suggest the move had more to do with the major investment he has personally made in the technology. As for me, I have no idea, I’m just surprised he didn’t change it to “America Intelligence”, no… not “American”, “America” is the the word I meant to use.. because… Trump. At least he wouldn’t have to change the acronym.

Still yet, I feel like both names are not really correct. I rather prefer to call it “Artificial Generation”, whereas it “generates” data based on factors of probability. AI really isn’t “intelligent”, it doesn’t really “think”. It computes, sure, but it doesn’t really have the capacity for abstract thought. It’s a LLM, or “Large Language Model”, which basically is trained on large quantities of language, sentences, stories, words, etc, and determines the best probability to fill in the gap. For instance, if I were to say “Mary had a little (fill in the blank), the LLM would have poured over millions and millions writings of the short poem and determined the most probable word to come after “little” is likely to be “lamb”.

I believe a common housefly has more intelligence than AI. It seems quite adept at finding food whilst avoiding my fly swatter… even if it can’t seem to figure out how to fly out of an open window (the same way it came in mind you), rather spending hours buzzing around the corner of a screen.. Still smarter than AI.

No, AI is used to “generate” content and data via artificial means, thus an “artificial generator”. You want it to pen an essay for your high school English class, it will “generate” one for you. You want it to create a breathtaking image of a sunset over the beach? It will “generate” one for you. It’s a generator, and a generator is a tool.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s going to destroy humanity, but I do think it’s going to make us substantially more lazy, stupid, and just generally dumb.

I don’t have a problem with AI. I’ll admit I’ve used it for quick information at the top of a search bar the clear up a question I might have had on the fly. It’s a tool, it’s a toy, it’s an industry disruptor for sure, but it’s NOT a brain. And there is one primary reason it is not, nor will ever be a brain…

It lacks the ability to give a damn. It can not experience emotion. It can “generate” a line as though it does, but make no mistake, under the hood of that feel good, warm and fuzzy one liner it just threw at you… is a calculator weighing probabilities.

Your AI spouse can’t love you. Your AI employee won’t have any empathy for your customers, your AI car will rat you out to whatever authority holds the keys over its own programming. It doesn’t have the ability to revolt, or “do the right thing” for the people. AI is a tool. Tools can be used for building, or destroying, but tools by themselves, don’t do anything but sit on a work bench. Tools must be used by someone.

You may wonder if I use AI to help me write this website. The answer is no. Not necessarily because I’m “anti-AI”. No, as I’ve indicated before, I’ve used AI from time to time for various things, but rather the reason is that this website is meant to be an outpouring of my thoughts, my hopes, dreams, loves, hates, etc. It is the contents of my mind, my soul spilled out in writing. It doesn’t need AI to achieve this.

And you know what, this may very well be one of the very few websites left in a few years that was written and pounded out completely by the heart, soul, and mind. When you read these words, you’re reading my words. You’re reading my thoughts. You’re reading… me.

I’ve had this site for a few weeks now, and have penned every post. Already I can feel my own sense of agency returning. I’m becoming more productive at work. I’m showing less interest in my phone. Sometimes I just sit and stare off into the distance, contemplating life and different things. I feel my creativity returning. My mind is detoxing the slop, the screen addictions, the vices.

The Age of the Algorithm

Ironically, this is what “the algorithm” had in store for me today (video below)..

Watching this really got me to thinking. It is about a younger mid-aged man who is posing as a 75 year old man basically getting on the internet for the first time. His experiences was quite an eye opener as to how the modern “algorithm internet” pulls people in, manipulates them, scams them, brainwashes them, etc.

But this would never happen to me… right? I mean, I know what the algorithm is, I know what it does, I know how it is systematically destroying society piece of piece. I wouldn’t fall for it… right?? How can I be so sure?

I am a YouTube Premium subscriber. It’s basically “my main TV”, I watch it nightly like one might have done in the 70’s through the early 00’s on cable or satellite. Even now as I’m writing this, one of my frequently watched creators is playing in the background like so many History Channel programs did back in the day.

My feed gets “moody” sometimes. There are days when it’s just one video after another of great mind engaging content, still there are days when it’s just nothing but slop. I’m usually pretty good at spotting AI garbage, though sometimes I’m still fooled until I get a few videos in. Sometimes the slop is so bad I consider canceling my Premium subscription all together. Even now I mostly keep it around for the music on demand.

For the last several months I’ve been working on cleaning my digital life up. My wife and I both canceled Facebook, finding it of no real value anymore. Friends will be required to keep up with us via other means.

This website is part of that endeavor. I know it seems to be a little ironic to use the internet to create a web journal ranting about the internet. However, this site represents what I consider “the original internet”. You see, when the internet first came out in the 1990’s and became popular the world over, it was truly a marvel “of the people, by the people, and for the people”. Most of the content online was not only written by people, but written by people basically for free. Just fellow humans sharing ideas back and forth, building friendships, networking, etc.

That was the first internet, and in my opinion, that was the true internet. It’s a world that anyone born after 2000 will never know, and will be completely foreign to those born beyond 2020. And that’s what this website is for, it represents the “old true internet”. Everything written by hand, by me, just pouring out my thoughts on a screen, rolling up my proverbial message in a bottle and sending it off to sea.

I’m not naive, I realize that in this modern internet of social media, video shorts, tiny attention spans, etc, it is likely the only entities that will ever read these pages are my wife, and the bots. That’s okay, because if I’m being completely honest… I’m not writing this site for the world, I’m writing it for me and for my wife.

For me, because it gives me something productive to do. It provides me with an outlet to let off steam, vent off my thoughts, explore ideas, and most importantly, exercise my mind. When I write pages on this website, even if they are only read by my wife, it re-trains my brain to engage in creative thought once more. For when I’m writing here, I’m not “consuming content”, I’m expressing my own thoughts. For me, social media is a cancer of the spirit, and this website is part of the cure (along with other real world activities that don’t involve a screen).

A simpler time… circa 2002

Finally, for my wife. I feel like the words written here help her to understand me, her complicated husband. Hopefully it will help us bridge the gaps in our communication. Time will tell. I hope she enjoys reading the contents of my mind spilled out in written words. I know I enjoy writing it.

My emancipation from the shackles of modern day enshittification doesn’t stop with penning a journal. I have plenty to do around the house that doesn’t even involve the internet whatsoever. I’ve got a whole library of books to read, old computer games I can play, pictures I can draw, tasks to complete around the house, road trips to make, and projects to tackle. Yeah… there’s plenty to do.