Worms Are Eating the Internet
On binge drinking in corn fields & dogs eating rocks
I recently dug through my old emails and social media accounts to unearth every photo I have from high school to my mid-twenties, and I got them printed.
I know I’m among many who have grown weary of relying on odious tech media billionaires for anything, including preserving our memories.
Digital media may survive a house fire better, but we were lied to about the internet lasting forever. Server maintenance is expensive. File formats become obsolete. Bug-faced billionaires take over and do weird larvae things…
I shared in a previous post that I have frequent intrusive thoughts about death. Given this, it’s occurred to me that if all our memories are locked up in Google Drives, it’ll be difficult for the people we leave behind to reminisce over our teenaged photos of us all binge drinking in corn fields.
My day job is IT adjacent, and sometimes I have conversations with people that suggest technological advancements are always moving towards something better. I’m confident that’s not true, given the primary goal of those advancements is for the worms to get richer.
They’ll keep degrading social media, streaming platforms, and anywhere they can get their feelers for the sake of piling more money in their bug-nests. And, as anyone who has had to log into four different streaming services to find a show only to have to sit through an ad for Wegovy knows, it shows.
Sometimes I’m asked if I’m worried about AI taking creative writing away, and I’m not. Maybe I’m missing something, but I think even if AI advances to be capable of writing things devoid of excessive em dashes, American spelling, and phrases like “weaving a tapestry”, it’s boring. Voiceless. I’m never going to want to read a book written by AI. How am I supposed to make assumptions about the writer’s personal life, their intentions, or take away anything insightful if the writer is lifeless?
I think there’s something we’re looking for when we read, or even log online, that has to do with connecting with other people. There are some exceptions where mindless AI satisfies the masses (like for ASMR, and some other use cases), but for the most part, consuming it is sort of like when a dog tries to eat a rock.
Anyways, here are some of the photos I got developed:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on memory and how important physical copies are. I would love to use this in my child care work; I’m sure families would love physical copies of their child’s pictures as we currently send them on an app.
I have been starting to get increasingly scared and annoyed with AI, including the rich people who benefit off of something we could use as a tool for accessibility but now is kind of like a dark entity.
I feel relieved you are not scared about it ‘replacing’ creative writing; I want to get back to uni and become a SLP, ideally without using AI, but I’m mind boggled how my child care colleagues are using AI to write ‘meaningful’ reflections about children or students. I love the social field for that it is needing meaningful acts of care and reflection and I will always be an advocate for non-ai written thoughts.
Seeing those photos was extremely nostalgic, and i don’t even know you. I love old photos. I started doing this also, because i have so many pictures on my phone it just feels a little meaningless. So i choose the best, the ones i want to remember, and create a real physical photo album. Thank you i enjoyed reading this