I’ve been thinking about this recently — in part spurred by a blog post that a Multitudean just made. The art and architecture of presentation. The careful construction of a clever, intriguing, attractive piece of writing representing a clever, intriguing, attractive person. The deep yearning for connection that underlies it, drives it, and is concealed by it. The desire to be known. But, you know, not too much. The sort of thing I do on this blog, here and there.

When I was younger, I wrote openly about my deeper feelings. Now… I don’t know. I have more to lose? There are more people out there? I’m happy to have my friends read my deeply personal introspection. I don’t care whether strangers do. There’s a swath of middle ground out there, I guess. And I have more to hide, more attachment to a persona that is maybe not quite representative of my internal chaos.

I heard a bit of an interview on NPR last night about… well, partly about artifical intelligence, of course. AI is pervasive not only in our technology but also in our conversations. In this case it was about AI as one more step in a long line of technological tools used to expand the reach of propoganda and misinformation. Radio, television, the internet; the author argued that with each innovation, groups have rushed to misuse it (to summarize and oversimplify her point). And now AI has made it so much easier for anyone to quickly and efficiently mislead people in a conveniently scalable way.

This is terrible, of course. But it also means that the internet as we know it is falling apart. Which is, on some level, wonderful. I am heartbroken by the internet as we know it. When I was young, it was a landscape only slightly cluttered by clumsy corporate attempts at control. It was mostly individuals seeking connection, with blogs and livejournal accounts and IRC chat rooms and aesthetically awful Geocities pages. With authentic and often deeply invested creation. Without the modern, bland, manipulative monoculture.

I could write for a long time about this, and you wouldn’t learn much. Either you’re old enough to know what I mean, or you’re young enough that the internet has never been beautiful. Just know that we lost something embarrassingly meaningful.

The relief I feel is this: as our Google results and Facebook feeds fill with crap, we retreat into smaller and smaller spaces. Discord channels. Signal chats. Coffee shops. We’re driven into forums that are, again, personal. It’s amazing, really. I don’t know what could have done this, if not unthinking capitalism eating itself. And so I am actually a bit grateful for the blind grasping nature of these AI companies and their disregard for the damage they cause.

Look, I’m not saying they’re good things. The environmental destruction. The sheer magnitude of the resources committed, which could otherwise be used to do so much good. The psychological impact of fake connection, of fake answers, of fake competence. We’re losing a lot. It’s just that some of the collateral damage is to the very forces that try to control us, that sap us of our will to find ways to authentically reach out to each other. Maybe we remake the resulting rubble into something that matters again.

When I was young, I was obsessed with computers and technology and video games and it was my dad who had some bizarre almost moral aversion to that world. I guess you die a geek or live long enough to see yourself become the luddite. I’m just glad we’re going outside again.

As always, I recommend Cory Doctorow if you’d like to read a gratifying tirade against the modern internet and the corporate interests that abuse it.