Faith in Ourselves
In 2016, legendary director and animator Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli was given a demonstration of “AI”-derived animation by game developers while filming the documentary “Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki.” They show him disturbing images of zombie-like creatures stumbling in inhuman ways, which viscerally upsets him. After the programmers explain their longer goal is to use AI to replace humans entirely, to “build a machine that can draw pictures like humans do,” the documentary cuts to a defeated looking Miyazaki saying “I feel like we are nearing to the end of the times [sic]. We humans are losing faith in ourselves.” A decade later this statement only feels more relevant, both in the feelings evoked by Miyazaki’s reflection on “losing faith in ourselves” and with respect to the context of “AI” tools envisioned to replace artists.
I believe that today’s AI mania contributes to people feeling like It’s so hard to be enough. The world seems broken in a thousand ways, and I feel insufficient to do anything about it. Proponents of “AI” have become the loudest voices in a chorus of critics that make living as a human feel increasingly impossible, but the companies exploiting that anxiety are hardly the first institutions to do so. I grew up within evangelical Christianity, so I was brought up to compare myself to a “perfect” god and see my best efforts as “filthy rags,” (from Isaiah 64:6) and to always know that I was never enough on my own. I left that behind a decade ago, but I hear similar echoes of this judgemental “God voice” everywhere these days even outside of the church. It’s everywhere now.
Today’s social pressures similarly make us feel like we are under constant pressure to be more, to feel as though we are nothing on our own, and to desperately need to cover over our terrible imperfections. This pressure arises from many different sources in our society, but all of them are trying to exploit our anxieties, shame, and guilt to get more out of us. Our economy and its ruthlessness makes us fear for our ability to put food on the table. We have to constantly see ourselves as expendable, easily replaced by our employers at a moment’s notice, so we will work harder and ask for less. Social media apps batter us with glowing false realities of the “better lives” we could be living. Self-help “gurus” sell us their phony fixes to supposedly bring us more money, more health, more happiness and success. It’s all just one more subscription or course or supplement away, for sure this time. And if that doesn’t work, it must have been our fault for not wanting it hard enough, not believing, having “bad vibes.” Social media companies push us to perform exactly the way they want us to. We must sound or look like whatever is already popular (and in most cases, advertiser-friendly)—or we will be hidden from recommendation algorithms and made effectively invisible.
And now “AI” is here, with all the subtlety of a brick to the face. The companies that sell Large Language Models to us are clear: you’re not enough. Not smart enough, not fast enough, not artistic enough. The “AI” can do it so much better than you. Just give up, this is inevitable, the “AI” can fix everything you cannot. Everyone else is probably already using it too, and if you don’t you’ll be left behind by work, by school, by your own friends and family. But if the “AI” doesn’t work right for you, that’s also your fault for not “prompting” it correctly. Somehow our faults are deserving of maximum criticism, but CEOs and influencers for “AI” are starting to explain how we need to lower our standards for “AI” outputs. “AI” gets grace no human could.
What can we do about any of this? I have no grand plan, just a small hope here: maybe I can do things to help regain faith in myself. Maybe I can defy the shouts of the chorus and stop fretting about human imperfections. I can fight back by being willing to fail, to be imperfect, and struggling to grow and evolve in my own ways. I can embrace the things that make me unique, instead of giving in to the fear that tells me I should be less myself and hide any weirdness. I can practice skills we will all need to fight for a better world and win. So: this is my leap of faith.
Welcome to Poetry of the Small and Strange. I’ll be drawing from many streams related to my interests–speculative fiction, indie tabletop RPGs, discussions on systems and failure–and exploring the “poetry” in them: aspects of artistry, beauty, and creativity in their design and how they think about things. In this newsletter, I’ll explore the stuff that the “AI” industry and the other pressures in our culture want to push away: the thoughtful, the weird, the intentionally slow and difficult. I hope others will join me on this journey, seeking inspiration in strange places, and generating meaningful conversation in a dehumanizing time. Maybe some readers will be inspired to start writing or otherwise creating themselves, just for the sake of human creativity. Let’s start regaining faith in ourselves.