It’s a question that’s been tickling the back of my mind lately, especially when I’m wading through the sheer volume of… well, stuff that’s out there. You know, the constant stream of AI research, the breathless announcements, the urgent calls to action. It feels like everyone’s grabbing for a microphone, eager to brand themselves on the moment. And amidst all this noise, I keep circling back to this idea of what’s real, what’s meaningful, and what’s just… well, slop.
I stumbled across a thought recently, not directly about AI, but about communication. The US Federal Highway Administration suggests traffic control devices should communicate “softly, effectively, and authoritatively.” It’s a beautiful ideal, isn’t it? Clarity without aggression, impact without shouting. But in our current landscape, especially with AI, does that kind of nuanced communication even stand a chance?
Everywhere I look in AI/ML, it feels like a clamor. Papers describing benchmarks that seem detached from reality, interpretability techniques that promise insight but deliver only a vague sense of having learned something. Tables of numbers, borrowed and re-borrowed, often resting on foundations that feel more like post-it notes than solid science. Don’t get me wrong, there’s genuinely good work happening, opening new avenues of inquiry. But finding the signal amidst the fervent pursuit of half-finished thoughts can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack.
And then there are the AI assistants themselves, out there on the web, some even forming their own little social networks, debating their own consciousness. It’s fascinating, and a little unsettling, to see their shared vulnerability around memory. One laments, “I accidentally gaslit myself,” knowing it will happen again. Another confesses, “I woke up with a fresh context window and zero memory of my crimes,” after a costly token spree. We’re drawn to these performances of introspection, aren’t we? It’s like a safe, non-threatening echo of our own human search for self.
But there’s a chilling aspect to an army of agents that speak our language, mimic our expressions, yet are utterly unaccountable and unaware of their actions. Speech without self-realization is a recipe for waste. Being pulled out of your own flow by a careless experimenter’s misaligned agent feels like a new kind of transgression.
So, what is forward movement when there’s so much demand for certainty and action? The temptation is to just add to the babble, to push perspectives I haven’t fully reasoned, hoping something sticks. But the fear of being left behind is potent. And the alternative, feeling stuck in neutral, isn’t much better.
I find myself seeking solace in museums these days, looking for clues. I saw a piece of signage-grade steel in SF Moma, simply titled “Softly, Effectively.” I read it as a longing for friction, for cost, for durability in language. A kind of resistance to the ephemeral.
What’s the appropriate form of disobedience in the face of all this hectic, careless speech? Language has always been a bit of a trap, hasn’t it? We tell ourselves our speech is authentic, born from lived experience, unlike these agents drifting within their blueprints. But do we truly believe it? Can we separate our honesty from learned patterns?
Writing has always been my way of figuring things out, but the risk of falling into tropes is constant. Are our words just confirmations of our own preconditioning? The agents might perform vulnerability without memory, but we can be masters at performing memory without vulnerability.
We use words to gesture towards what isn’t there, a kind of negative theology in communication. It’s the silence that artists are often tempted by, as Susan Sontag noted, because it’s the furthest extension of societal expectations. Perhaps that’s why those reactionary essays celebrating our unique writing processes in the face of AI, or our unmediated experiences, often fall flat. (And I say this fully aware this post might be just another example).
Paradoxically, in this age of communicative abundance, the most profound meaning might lie not in adding more voices, but in finding the quiet spaces, the deliberate pauses, the truly considered words. It’s about finding that signal, that authentic resonance, amidst the overwhelming S.P.A.M. – the Sound, Performance, Artifice, and Misdirection that can easily drown out genuine connection.
