Default Setting

AI is stealing something important from us. It’s ruining wonder.

In the past, if I watched a video of someone doing something extraordinary, I’d think, How did they do that? Or I'd see a video of a brave dog rescue another animal and be happy that life occasionally produces stories better than fiction.

Now my brain interrupts with a different reaction: "Is this AI?"

Instead of enjoying the moment, my brain starts fact-checking it. Every incredible photo, every unbelievable performance, every heartwarming moment now arrives with an invisible disclaimer: Proceed with skepticism.

That's a loss.

Of course, AI didn't invent fake things. Photoshop has been lying to us for decades. But AI has made doubt so cheap that we spend it on everything.

Sometimes a breathtaking photo is the product of a photographer who waited six freezing hours for the right light.

Sometimes a dancer is actually that good.

Sometimes a dog really does something that reminds you why people don't deserve dogs.

We used to assume something remarkable probably had a remarkable explanation … years of practice, ridiculous talent, dumb luck, or the weirdness of being human. Now, thanks to AI, suspicion is our default setting … and our lives are diminished because of it.

Not Gonna Change

 

I like short sentences. I like lists of three. And, yes, I love me an em-dash.

Apparently, those are all “AI tells” that’ll make an Artificial Intelligence detector flaps its little wings and sound an alarm: Beep beep - suspicious human AI use detected.

Cute. But I didn’t build my voice in a prompt window. I built it in drafts. In meetings. On deadlines.

I earned my word scars. And now I’m supposed to stop writing how I write because some detector wags its algorithmic finger?

Nah.

I’ve been writing professionally for a long time. Long enough to know what works. Long enough to know what’s mine. Long enough to know I’m here to connect with readers, not impress a robot.

If a machine thinks I'm a machine, that’s not my problem, that’s a design flaw. File a bug report. Tell tech support the human has too much rhythm. 'Cause I'm not changing. Not gonna write like a middle-school book report to make a silicon hall monitor feel safe.

I was here before the detectors. Before the red flags. Before the breathless warnings that creativity might be “generated.” I write like this because it’s how I think. I’m not gonna scrub the fingerprints off my voice.

I write with teeth. And breath. And the occasional verbal middle finger.

If that trips your digital tripwire? Good. Means I’m still weird enough to be human.

And I’m not gonna change.

Not for detectors. Not for flags. Not for whatever robot snoop evolves next.

And if that’s a problem for the robots, fuck ‘em. I’ll be over here … typing with intent, smirk fully engaged.

PS Here's proof that Shakespeare used AI to write his plays:

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Check out my song: Spot the Bot (The I Miss My Em-Dash Blues)

Schedule your hardest work when your brain is strongest.

 

My most productive writing times are 7am to 11am and 4pm to 6pm.

Those times have changed over the years, but I’ve consistently enjoyed about 6 highly productive hours a day. Sure, I’ve had to grind out work outside those hours. I’m a pro and can get the job done well any time, anywhere … just maybe not in peak efficiency.

So I try to schedule my most important, highest priority work into that time frame I know I’m at my best. And recharge during “off” hours.

How ‘bout you? Have you figured out where your productivity “sweet spot” is?

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The story behind "Crank It Up To 11"

The Future That Expired Before It Arrived

 

In 2021, Facebook renamed itself Meta. A bold move.

The name Meta came from “the metaverse", an idea from dystopian novels of a place where people escaped from a hellish real world. And the move was based on a simple idea: the future would happen inside headsets. We’d all wander into a glossy digital elsewhere while the real world quietly smoldered in the background.

Mark Zuckerberg seemed convinced this was where life was headed: goggles on, reality optional.

Now that whole push toward virtual reality has mostly… evaporated. Not dramatically. Not with a cinematic collapse. Just a slow corporate shrug, the way trends usually die …fading like a New Year’s resolution.

What fascinates me isn’t that the bet failed. Big bets fail all the time. It’s the speed of it.

The company renamed itself after something that was supposed to be the future… and that future never managed to become the present. It skipped straight to the past. It promised disruption, but ended up speed-running obsolescence.

There’s something oddly perfect about a tech company doing that. The tech industry worships the future so intensely that sometimes it trips over it, face-plants, and accidentally invents nostalgia for last week.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are still just using our phones to text people and watch cat videos. Reality, stubborn as ever, refuses to go out of style.