AI (Avoiding Information)

A little peak behind the curtain (caves have curtains, right?). 

Every week, this newsletter starts as a Slack thread of articles that are used as inspiration to write something that is (hopefully) cogent. The idea is to go as broad as possible to open up avenues for fresh topics. 

And yet, it has become basically impossible to avoid AI. It crops up in every single subject, across every single publication, every single week.

Some recent examples: what the Pope said about AI. Why students booed their pro-AI graduation speakers. Fair Work blames AI for an explosion in cases. How AI might create a permanent underclass. Why replace people with AI if AI is more expensive? Why AI should make you think twice about going to university. And on and on it goes.

These are all interesting pieces. They raise important questions that are worthy of consideration. But they also all end up in the same place - something big is happening, we do not know exactly what that is, and this is very scary.

Trying to write about culture, or comms, or the world in general seems to end up in the same place, like a giant magnet for hot takes. 

It’s impossible to avoid, impossible to keep up with, and increasingly impossible to find something interesting to say about it.

This is not a promise to stop talking about AI. But it’s a commitment to try and not let it define everything. Until next week, at least.