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Be. Chill. By the wonderful Grace Farris.
P.S. My teen’s favorite things and adventures of Gen Alpha.
Just a Quick Question
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I think it’s, mom is FINALLY getting a moment to relax, has JUST settled into her book she’s been dying to read……. along comes teen who has already frayed her nerves to breaking that day, asking a question he just KNOWS she has deep and strong and angry feelings about, not because he really cares what she thinks, but because he’s trolling her. Too cynical ?? Maybe. As a parent who’s raised teens, they do this. They are sharpening their brain skills by picking fights with you, and sometimes you just want to read your book in peace damn it.
I love Gabrielle Blair’s most recent essay on her Substack on this very subject. It’s entitled “I Wish We Would Stop Calling This AI”.
Why is it that these questions always come during peak Mom relaxation time? Lol at the mismatched socks and novel, I’ve been there too!
Books, no. Art, no. There’s something intrinsic in humans that makes us suspicious of even the slightest difference. It’s actually why we have so many cross cultural problems in the world. For our own survival we are primed to spot patterns and we are all very very good at it. The consumers of art and books respect humanity and will seek truth at a higher level than ever. Just my 2c
I see you, Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica Stanley!! Just picked up my preorder.
I work in a public library and my partner is a software engineer and I think we’d both say; way more worried about the humans than AI at this point. And like everything in afraid of or worried about, when I focus small, on my family, my community, my city, I feel a little better.
Came here to see if anyone could identify the book. Thank you for your service!
Oh my gosh my students wanting me to rant instead of teach and getting me going on plastic water bottles and specifically those from Fiji. Buckle up, kids! We’re going in!
The best one/s usually come when you’re driving, likely hungry or at the end pf the day, likely sleepy.
haha, YES! I swear my kids have a shared note on their phones of complex questions to ask at confusing intersections and prompts for long responses after I tell them to go to bed!
I’m a software engineer who uses AI every day and folks it is NOT THAT GOOD! It’s like cruise control, you have to be in the driver’s seat with both hands on the wheel.
Its investors want so badly for it replace labor but after 3 yrs of being told I’ll be replaced I haven’t seen that yet.
It’s the environmental cost of the slop that I just can’t think around. I don’t worry that AI will replace me; I worry, philosophical questions about humanity and creativity aside, that it will replace, you know, a habitable planet. There’s literally a crappy AI-generated comic-strip version of the SARAH CONNOR WATCHING YOU USE AI FOR EVERYTHING meme pinging around Bluesky right now and y’all, this is why we can’t have nice things.
Not worried. As Dr. Cottom says much better than I ever could, all AI can be is mid.
This is my biggest parenting tip!!!!!! No matter what they ask, stall! “Oh, hmm. What makes you ask?”
Because finding out WHY they asked is sometimes waaaaaay more important than WHAT they asked……
I love this!
Yes yes!! I always say “good question… what do you think?”
This!
This is the best parenting hack ever (aka ‘be the adult’… I do sometimes tease my son and his friends when I drive them places by asking my kid’s friend ‘Do you want to hereabout the research I have read on laptops at school?” or whatever rant I am obsessed with this week. They always laugh!
I look forward to Grace’s post every week!
I just looked into my mind and this came up: Yes, there will be „flawless“ AI books. And then there will be bookstores, reading circles, book park events, secret swaps in busses, festivals, solely dedicated to „made up by a human mind“ stories. Maybe even camp fires, or at least a candle surrounded by humans.
And because these, the human thought of stories we read at nighttime, they will make themselves cozy in our bodies and stay there.
And because those stories will have beautiful imperfections, we will see ourselves mirrored in them.
And because those stories will have a human heart quality, these are the ones, we will buy, read, gift, write ourselves, leave in trains or on door stoops.
And because of those stories, we might want to know more about the human who has written those books; a depth and richness which a non-human book cannot provide. And I’m here for it.
I want to keep on reading books that either catch me and drag my heart into this story; or read books I find „oh, well“. I am not interested in a book that fulfils my every dream (and I assume an AI book provided with the right prompts could do exactly that). I want a book with real pages, read times and times again on a train, at the beach, on a sofa, between other humans sitting on a park bench.
Basically, I want to say hooray to Daphne du Maurier, Astrid Lindgren, Struan Murray, Andrea Wulf, Oliver Jeffers and about 742 other human book writers who made and make my world so so much more beautiful.
Crickey Grace, who would have thought I can cry over a cartoon. :) thank you.
Charlotte, this is one of the prettiest things I’ve ever read! I think you should write a book :)
I second that Tamar.
Oh man, I’m not a parent yet but I do worry about reeling in my ranting capabilities (I’m very good at it, give me a topic and I’ll find something to be disgruntled about it. Especially if its tech like AI or the current political buffoonery) in the future when I have children. Even now, my husband knows when I need to blow of steam and rant about something, he just lets me have a monolog for a solid few minutes, which is helpful. One thing I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older is that I can be calm at times, I am almost never “a chill person.” There is a difference I think. And honestly, I’m okay with that.
The way AI makes me want to start a bar fight!
If anyone needs a Thing Clearly Made by Humans to quiet their soul today, here’s an IG feed of decorative jellies made in antique molds and then wiggled. That’s all. F them robots.
That made me way happier than I anticipated!
Thank you!! I feel this rage that there is a small group of people deciding our fate (wars, AI, etc) and it burns a white flame within my body right now. Thank you for the jelly relief.
F THEM ROBOTS.
Someone make this into a bumper sticker and a T-shirt immediately and post a link to purchase please.
Heck yeah, Lauren. We deserve to read books by humans, and we deserve the joy of writing them.
YEAH! Totally with you folks!!
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