Hi, I’m Jen Dziura.
I wrote about 500 articles on this website in the 2010s, and then stopped.
There were many reasons, one of which is that I don’t think most people have more than 500 things to say, and I believe there is virtue in not stretching out the ones you do.
It takes time to stew, to live, to eventually need to say something publicly again. It helps to have other professions – I run an online gift shop, I can spend weeks or months in spreadsheets and databases, organizing a warehouse, doing things like “optimizing a Google PerformanceMax campaign” that qualify as labor in our day and age.
Sometime during this period of not writing, I was shocked to learn that 30-50% of people do not have persistent internal monologues. You think you know what it means to be human, right?
I watched an interview with one such person who said that when she is not speaking, she does not think. I should mention that others who lack an internal monologue claim to think in images, in diagrams, or in thought itself, wordless and pure. But not this person! So she keeps busy! She is always moving. She frequently speaks out loud to herself. All of her thoughts make it out of her, even if only to the air.
My experience could not be more different. The biggest physical danger in my world is being hit by a car while crossing the street, and nearly every time I do so, I think: if I die right now, it will be with 99.9999% of my thoughts shared with absolutely no one. My children will think my main concerns were purchasing correctly-fitting pants for school and getting good deals on fruit.
I had been thinking for years about writing again. I made copious notes. A spreadsheet of titles. An editorial calendar, as though I myself were an entire magazine staff. And then, AI – or Large Language Models – happened.
What’s the point, I thought? If I start writing now, people will assume I’m just using AI. It looks suspicious.
So I decided to begin by writing about that.
I also decided that, rather than tossing individual blog posts into the void, I’d curate the articles into quarterly “Issues” (again, as though I myself were an entire magazine staff) – so as, I suppose, to toss something weightier into the void.
I feel that you should read these articles in the order below. Of course, musicians used to put out “albums” in which the songs were intended to be listened to in a particular order, and that idea is now lost to time.
1.1: What Is the Point of Writing Anything When AI Can Do It Worse?
The only human response is to write something that AI couldn’t write – or as that becomes increasingly impossible, to write something AI couldn’t write without lying, as an AI has no personal experiences and no convictions.
Read the Post1.2 The Person You Want to Talk to Does Not Exist
It was once common that you would got to a bank or a store, and a person who worked there would derisively wave away the output of some machine. “Oh, the computer always does that,” or “The register doesn’t want me to ring up two coupons, but….” The expectation was not only that most employees knew more than the machine, but that the had the power to ignore the machine.
There are fewer and fewer places where there is someone in charge who knows more than the machines they use…
Read the Post1.3: The Algorithm Has No Concept of Virtue
Among those I have asked “So, what does your YouTube algorithm think you want to watch?”, I have received an array of answers I never could have imagined.
The default assumption is that the answer will be at least a little shameful.
This is because the YouTube algorithm – like many other algorithms that shape our lives – has no respect for virtue.
Read the PostYou may notice that this Issue contains a number of photos of me. I don’t think they’re particularly necessary for engaging with the articles, but I am making every effort to indicate “a human is here!”
I did not use AI to write articles about AI.
I did pose for a photo while standing next to a tree, which I suppose is similar to, as the kids, say “touching grass.”
Please enjoy and – as the kids who are also monetized on YouTube say – don’t forget to subscribe.
