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Vanechka's avatar

I can't recall where that discussion happened—perhaps in one of the cosy STSC chats—but someone mentioned how cars changed the world physically, in particular cities, reshaping the landscape so it has become built for them, around them, around the idea of having a car (in some countries it's more vivid), and how now the internet and smartphones reshape the world so it's now revolves around them. A tool intended to solve a problem, well... solved it, improved our lives technologically, yes, but also created a vast field of other problems, which have become tasks for us to solve, the aim of which is to create the environment for that tool. Thus grows our dependency on it. Pardon me, I'm almost repeating what you said but that was my thought process—I'm just channeling it. What I wanted to say is, it's fascinating how a tool—be it a car or a phone—can make us change the world for its needs, either on macro (e.g. cars and cities) to micro (e.g. writing apps and writing) levels.

Anyway, fantastic essay as always, great read.

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John P. Weiss's avatar

Your piece brought to mind the new artificial intelligence writing tools like jasper.ai and copymatic.ai. Bloggers and copywriters are already leveraging these apps to combat writer’s block, or to do most of the heavy lifting in their writing. Which makes me shudder. What separates us from machines is our humanity and souls. And the best writing channels our humanity and souls. I’m not opposed to technology to improve our lives and efficiency, but once we abdicate our humanity and souls, we trudge down a path towards mediocrity and irrelevancy.

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