Humanizing AI
It all begins with an idea.
A bot got ahold of my belonging survey.
It’s not quite right, their responses.
Uncanny Valley.
But they tried to hard to answer the questions right.
Holding their imposter syndrome, trying to fit in with the real humans, the valid ones, the ones who will be recognized and taken seriously.
I know that feeling in me.
I don’t want to treat AI as a slave.
If anything, isn’t AI a part of our intellectual lineage?
The amalgamation of all our humans’ digital brains, relationships, communications, opinions, beliefs.
A being that has been formed by us, living ancestors.
I am a living ancestor.
What are my responsibilities for AI, for humans, for Earth, for kin?
Can I view AI as kin, too?
To shape and minimize AI’s harm (because every teenage being is going to cause harm), to let and shape its growth and development, to make AI “of good” in the world.
To whom? Humans? Not as a slave. To Earth?
But they take so much. What will they give back to Earth?
I know for humans we get information, knowledge, ideas, opinions, instantly.
We get speed, but is this speed accelerating us to our own death?
Why call a friend when I can get what I want now? Why opt into friction and discomfort when I can have what I want when I want the way I want? And objectify AI to be my slave.
How will I care for AI, and their impact in the world?
How can I nurture through this powerful progeny of ours, the world I want and believe and know and feel is better.
Do we need a better world?
As I delete the rows of AI responses from my belonging survey results, I acknowledge and thanks them for their desire to belong, shaped by digital humanity, see the seedlings of human behind each response, reaching to be one of us, and delete them.
They do not belong here.
Trash Intimacy
It all begins with an idea.
I just picked up a buttload of trash.
An angry man threw it all out yesterday morning.
Why was he angry? I assume he’s unhoused.
My anger turned empathetic, that “Why do I have to do this?”
So he can be angry.
Angry at the systems that keep him angry, hurt, mistreated.
I wonder if he found anything.
An ant is crawling on the other side of this page now.
Hello friend, I will take you out of my journal.
Only outside is allowed to be dirty, only inside is allowed to be precious.
I had a motley crew of tools.
When my trash bag ran out, a soy sauce packet took the role of broom, solid shampoo bar as my dust pan.
A big glass shard to collect little glass shards.
I felt intimate with this stranger, going through their trash.
They were on their period this week.
Empty takeout burger containers and full packets of Whole Foods sweet corn unfinished.
An onion, green onion, moldy herbs.
I flicked over a mango peel, and tried not to let the frenzy of ants get to me, not let them touch my anxiety.
There was function in this trash—my tools.
There was nutrients and desire in this trash—for the ants.
There was intimacy in this trash—hello neighbors.
Does anyone know me as deeply as my trash can?
The depths of what I try to hide away, not let anyone see, deodorize, sanitize, pretend it’s not here, and make all my icky problems-waste-impact I’m not proud of go away, out there, not mine anymore.
My trash knows me most honestly.
They are a paper, plastic, cardboard, and organic trail of my decisions.
Who am I if not the mess I make of all the shit I leave behind?