Taking a trip for six months, you get in the rhythm of it. It feels like you can go on forever doing that. Climbing Everest is the ultimate and the opposite of that. Because you get these high-powered plastic surgeons and CEOs, and you know, they pay $80,000 and have Sherpas put the ladders in place and 8,000 feet of fixed ropes and you get to the camp and you don’t even have to lay out your sleeping bag. It’s already laid out with a chocolate mint on the top. The whole purpose of planning something like Everest is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain and if you compromise the process, you’re an asshole when you start out and you’re an asshole when you get back.
YVON CHOUINARD
The process matters. That was the conclusion reached on a podcast with Yvon Chouinard. One of the podcasters brought up the infamous story of the way Tim Ferriss won a karate championship by doing a sumo move where he just pushed people out of the ring resulting in a victory by disqualification. Basically, Ferriss exploited a loophole to "win." It didn't matter that he skipped learning karate. He had found a hack to accomplish the goal. In today's world, the end justifies the means as people find every shortcut to get what they want. But we all know that people like Tim Ferriss and others like him are cheating themselves.
Now, I love a good tip or technique that makes life easier. Yvon Chouinard does, too, as he finds the simplest way to fly fish or make a good product. Is this the same as a Tim Ferriss hack? I don't think so. Much of the process involves discovering what works and doesn't work. Ferriss skips this process altogether.
This point has increased in importance as we now live in the age of AI where college students use ChatGPT to write their term papers, and Kim Kardcashian uses ChatGPT to cheat on the bar exam she failed. AI is the ultimate hack, and you can see how all of the fakers in government and corporate management are salivating at the prospects of the new technology. The guy with the fake degree from a diploma mill never has to worry about being caught and identified as a liar and a dumbass. People without intelligence or talent don't need to fret about how to write blog posts or make YouTube videos. AI will do it all for them.
I don't think the world wants this fake AI crap anymore than they wanted the lip syncing of Milli Vanilli. For some reason, human beings crave the authentically real and human thing. Music producer Rick Beato noticed this as people have come to reject the perfect music being produced today where every beat is on time and every note is in perfect pitch. The music sounds sterile. Wait until AI starts making movies and TV shows.
Elon Musk predicts that most human work today will end up as mere hobbies in the AI powered future. If you see what the light bulb did to candle making, you have to agree. Homemade candles are a hobby today that might get you a few bucks at the farmer's market. But are we prepared for AI created music, movies, TV shows, and art? Does the world really want that crap? So far, it doesn't.
What I know about AI is that it essentially plagiarizes human creativity. It doesn't create so much as remixes and mimics. I know that AI trains itself on my blog posts as I get all sorts of traffic from company websites. Apparently, they need my human generated content to steal. Even Milli Vanilli has actual humans singing on their records.
What I find is that the economy breaks in two parts where you have mass produced crap produced for the hoi polloi while you have a smaller part for people who want the real thing. For instance, you have McDonald's that makes burgers for the masses while you have the small mom and pop place that makes their burgers the old fashioned way. For some reason, McDonald's is unable to put mom and pop out of business.
I think there will always be a place for the authentically human thing where the process matters. I ask for only one important regulation. People need to be told that what they are consuming is either human or AI. The problem at the heart of AI is deception. I think people have a right to know if something is real or fake.
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YVON CHOUINARD - The Perpetual Pursuit of Simplicity
I Will Start the Anti-AI Revolution.
