As much as I have the general vibe of a luddite (strange hobbies, socially maladjusted, unfathomable fashion choices, etc) I have to hand it to automation: it’s nice that computers have made some boring things in our lives less boring.

I side with the writer and philosopher John Gray, who in his terrifying work of eco-nihilism Straw Dogs balances the fact that human beings are a plague animal who are wrecking the biosphere that supports them with the idea that we have made our lives easier through technology. Gray, in particular, calls anesthetised dentistry an “unmixed blessing”.

. . .

In matters of technology, I operate on one guiding principle: I give my computer the work that I do not want to do, and that I gain little by doing myself. The ideal model of the computer, I think, is the calculator: if I sat there with a piece of paper and a pen, I could probably do most of the sums myself that I ask my calculator to do. But that would take time, and I’m a busy man (lots of cool bird videos to watch), and so I give it to a computer to work out.

. . .

It’s increasingly clear that a computer could live my life for me, all while I atrophy, never going outside. But if I reduced my existence to a series of ChatGPT prompts, the act of my living is only shorter, not better. And despite what tech bros tell me, those are not the same thing.