The Coming Storm

I wrote the below reflection in a work Teams chat today and feel it is worth sharing.

Cognition must never be outsourced to AI. AI, like all other technologies which preceded and prefigured it (and follow it!), is a great tool for handling aspects of the creative process which are procedural, sequential, and identically replicable—but cognition transcends this mode, because it accesses and transforms meaning, which technology (as a metaphysical category) cannot contact.

Architectural and systems-oriented thinking is already at a premium, but with the dawn of AI code development and business process automation, it is now crucial to the survival of the white-collar worker. If your job can be perfectly handled (and even improved upon!) by a machine which ultimately works using binary logic (as opposed to the intersubjectivity unique to human beings), it shall be—and we will all be forced to adapt, in one way or another.

I am choosing to adapt by becoming highly competent in cognitive tasks, and learning what I can about emerging AI technologies is indeed a part of that. Even more importantly, I read widely across history, classics, literary fiction, poetry, and philosophy; I am an avid skateboarder and snowboarder, and I love lifting weights, cold plunge, sauna, yoga, etc.; I play piano, drums, and guitar, and am beginning to learn a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation); I write on a near-daily basis, either on my phone, laptop, or with a pen and paper, and I am making plans for my first book; I take opportunities for speaking engagements when I am able; I teach music lessons to my younger siblings; and I never watch short-form video content. I also never use my electronic devices as a place to spend time; rather, I use them as tools to help me complete tasks and learn skills.

That’s all for now. Merry Christmas and happy holidays. I’ll be doing a whole lot of the above activities during the disconnect, in addition to spending much time with family.