Three Things You’ve Told Me in No Uncertain Terms

First, some context: my subscriber base is verrry modest. There are (on Substack) exactly 246 of you. I know many of you in real life. I am related to some of you. 

I write each week not to tell you—or anyone—how to think about things but instead to figure out what I’m thinking. I’m guessing that most of you read my posts in the same spirit—not as the definitive take on anything but simply as food for thought as you do your own grappling. 

My favorite thing about this column? Each week in the days after I publish, I hear in some form or another (email, text, real-life throat clearing, etc.) from 10–20% of you. This—the ensuing discussion—is why I stay up way past my bedtime on Thursday nights to write. I love talking about the world with you, and I appreciate it so much when you talk back. I especially love it when you push back—it’s like going to the gym—and in recent weeks I’ve received quite a bit of that. There are three things in particular that I’ve heard a lot: 

1. Kate, you were wrong about Mitch McConnell.

I was indeed! During McConnell’s three-month absence from the Senate, I became convinced he was incapacitated and would never return to work. Even more tinfoil hattish, I simply could not rule out that his team was conspiring to hide his condition in order to forestall a special election. 

When I’m wrong, I like to learn from the experience, and I think the real lesson here is…don’t live your life so that reasonable people have to consider whether you and/or your associates would go to extreme lengths to subvert democracy.

Also: our delightfully squishy human bodies betray us from time to time, especially as we age but also, for example, when we painstakingly grow brand new people from scratch. Since temporary infirmity and continued employment are not, it seems, incompatible (huzzah!), I’m all for using McConnell’s experience to move toward paid leave for all Americans*. I especially like David Hogg’s suggestion to call it the MITCH (Maintaining Income Through Caregiving and Health) Act. 

2. Kate, AI is bad-bad-bad and, even if you don’t use it to write, I’m still mad that you use it at all.

Thinking through the implications of AI is extremely taxing: What is ethical**? What is not? What is going to be an essential tool? What is a distraction? What is a genuine threat—to our individual cognitive abilities, our societal cohesion, or ::tries to remain breezy:: ALL OF HUMANITY? 

I understand the impulse not to think about any of it. I really do! I love nothing more than some hefty card stock and a full set of felt-tip pens; if I knew I could afford it, I think I could quite happily spend the rest of my days taking walks, listening to books, watching movies, and doodling page after colorful page. That said, I really don’t see how those of us who still need to make a living, as well as guide our kids toward financial independence, cannot be thinking about AI. I really can’t!

Also, it’s not bad-bad-bad. It’s complicated. Just in the seven days since last I wrote to you, I have another “AI was super helpful” example: our beloved 2013 Honda Fit was totaled*** on Monday, and I’ve spent the last few days doing battle with our insurance company over the payout. I am 100% confident the final amount paid to us will be thousands of dollars more than it would otherwise be if I hadn’t fed every single message from the adjuster to a robot and asked: What does he know that I don’t? What would I ask if I knew more about this process?

3. Kate, did you know that in the app version of Substack, there’s a “Listen” button where I can hear your post read out loud? But it’s not your voice; it’s some dude!

I did not know that! Funny. Chances are it’s going to be some time before I get around to fixing that. In the meantime, perhaps we Substack writers just revel for a moment in the fact that our voices are not being cloned without our knowledge? It’s a low bar, but this week especially: I’ll take it!

Notes:

*During his absence from the Senate this summer, Mitch McConnell missed 60 votes. I know women who literally gave birth without missing a single conference call. I admire the grit of those women, but I despise the system that requires this kind of superhuman strength: no one should ever be that worried about missing work due to a health crisis—and yet the vast majority of Americans (men and women) most certainly are. We must change this. 

**Even a Microsoft executive called the scraping of content used to train AI “the largest theft of labor in human history.” In my view, you’d have to be a total sociopath (and/or a frontier company CEO?) not to be troubled by this. 

***We’re all fine, thank you. Hard lessons—specifically about the need to secure a dog in a car—were learned, but thankfully no other vehicles were involved and no one, human or canine, was injured. (I am, however, 900 years older today than I was on Monday.)

Related: IMHO self-driving cars can’t come soon enough. Even humans who don’t drink, text, or fall asleep behind the wheel are frighteningly fallible. I’ve used Waymos while traveling, and I love them. I (just like you, I suspect?) contain multitudes: I’m a hard yes on the potential to save tens of thousands of lives a year while recognizing that the associated job dislocation and surveillance risk are serious concerns that need addressing.