Post-Literate

You can't read a post about how AI is making us dumber without running into a reference to Plato's Phaedrus and Socrates' story about King Thamus's lament that writing will give people the appearance of wisdom but not the reality of it. But nobody really talks about Thoth, the Egyptian god who invented writing. I look into who Thoth is and why he might have even more to teach us than King Thamus.

My mother never really understood what I did for a living. I don't blame her. Most of the time, I couldn't explain it either.

The books pile up by my bedside. Tabs just keep multiplying. My phone beckons me like a needle to an addict. When we lament the fact that nobody reads anymore, we have to factor in this attention war zone we're living in.

Rummaging through old journals, remembering what I thought, and rediscovering an appreciation for writing

An anecdote about synthetic orality

AI deserves rigorous ethical scrutiny. But a critique built on how bad it is looks very different from one that accounts for how good it's become.

I am happy to let AI write code for me. But I have a red line when it comes to writing that bears my name. That line is getting smudged.

A working list of what I use, how I use it.

Why isn't hearing someone talk about their ideas the same as reading them written down?