Missives from Samsara

There were two elements of my recent road trip that I wanted my 12 year old to experience. One was the southern Oregon coast. My kiddo had been to the northern part of our state’s beautiful coast, but not south of Newport. We stayed in Gold Beach, Yachats, and Bay City, and spent several sunny hours enjoying the beach at Bandon. The other experience I wanted to share was a walk through an old growth redwood grove, which we managed to do at a place called the Stout Grove, just a bit southeast from Crescent City. (Shout out to my old friend EK for pointing us in that direction.)

The trees, of course, did not disappoint. We got to the old growth section early enough to find a good parking spot close to the Grove of Titans trail and spent about an hour walking around with our heads tilted skyward. Everyone we encountered was friendly and the weather was perfect, damp but not too cold. It is quite a feeling to walk amid trees that are more than a thousand years old.

Back home, reminiscing about the big, old trees, I picked up a book of Gary Snyder’s poetry and reread some of his poems that I love. He writes beautifully about nature in general, and the west coast of North America in particular, and I am always drawn to his work after getting back from some quality time in the outdoors. The picture below shows the final 2 stanzas of a 6 stanze poem of his called As For Poets.

A topic that I continue to think a lot about is AI. As it becomes more ubiquitous, I am hearing more and more opinions about it. Hearing what others think is helpful because my reactions help guide my own reflections about the topic.

On one hand, I am coming to realize that the data center issue is an important one. The controversy in Utah has certainly got me thinking about the behind the scenes consequences of AI. Despite the benefits AI provides, would I want a giant, water and energy sucking data center located near me? The answer is hell no. I also respect the views of Sam Harris and he’s been an AI doomer since the beginning. The recent letter sent by all the giant AI companies to congress seems to indicate that Mr. Harris is right to be worried, not just about his electricity bill, but about our collective future. As a parent, these concerns cut deep. Finally, I worry about how AI seems poised to both displace millions of workers AND exacerbate the already depressing wealth disparities in our society. Will my kid graduate high school into an unimaginable job desert?

On the other hand, despite a keen awareness of my own bifurcated and evolving views about AI, the contrarian in me is irritated by other hypocrisies I detect around this issue. For instance, I use AI to help construct short, highly tailored text for use in class (usually as an introduction to a historical topic). However, I don’t hide this from my students (and of course I still assign reading from the required AP text on a daily basis, along with myriad relevant and challenging primary and secondary sources) nor do I preach to my students about how bad AI is. However, students tell me that other teachers bad mouth AI, while using it heavily (and obviously) themselves in class. That grates.

I also just listened to a podcast done by a doctor who shared her thoughts about AI. She said she’d ‘never write’ with AI, not even an email. She claimed to be irritated by reading emails from others that were AI generated. She also indicated, and I’ve heard many people say the same thing so I believe it is probably a dominate view, that she just couldn’t enjoy any writing if she knew it was AI.

I have a few responses to this. First, while she is of course entitled to her opinion, I believe it is an arrogance born of privilege to assume others want to spend their precious time writing emails. From my perspective, if someone wants, or needs, to use AI to help triage their email, that is no business of mine. Furthermore, for someone who probably hired a nanny to help raise her kids, it seems a bit rich to argue that writing that is partly done by AI is somehow ‘inauthentic.’ If you are not going to call out people for outsourcing their parenting, surely desk jockeys, newsletter writers, busy white collar workers, bloggers, and content creators can use the tools available to get their work done. Indeed, do celebrities and CEOs get shamed for hiring ghost writers to write their memoirs? Do photographers get shamed for touching up their pictures with Photoshop? If I read a newsletter that provides benefit to me somehow, I don’t give a shit who or how it was written. But alas, I realize my current view on this is probably in the minority.

I’ve heard from a few commentators that as AI continues to take over, human authenticity will be the new currency of the realm. Those that can provide a human touch in their work or their business will thrive, despite the increasing powers of AI. I think that is likely to be true. But we aren’t there yet. Instead, we are here now, in 2026, working our mostly 20th century jobs, raising our kids without robot nannys, watching idiots burn our institutions to the ground, and still driving our own cars around town. I can see why people are excited about using a technology that offers time saving, novelty, and in some important ways, hope. However, increasingly I am also aware of the huge potential downsides. One thing is certain, we are in for some major changes and I still don’t know exactly what I think about that.

Meanwhile…

AI Internship with Rick Rubin

Deep Fakes in Armenia Elections

An economist talks about AI

Playing Video Games Against Chatbots Gets Weird

I came across this article twice in a matter of days and decided to give it a read. The article appeared originally in the Times of India and was authored by Pranav Jain. It is about adult friendships and if you give it a read you’ll see why it went a bit viral over here in North America. The dude makes some good points (including the one quoted below)!

My only commentary is that I agree with Jain’s take. Adult friendship cuts against the grain of so much in our culture, but it is true gold. The stats in America indicate many adults have fewer and fewer friendships. No doubt ‘social media’ is partly to blame. I am lucky to have friends from every period in my life and I try hard not to take them for granted (though I naturally do sometimes). Of course, the older I/we get, the longer the gaps sometimes are between connections. Gotta work on that!

I came across this study this weekend in one the newsletters I peruse from time to time. The study was apparently published more than two years ago.

I saw the study in a post about someone who recently went viral tricking people on X with a Monet. He told people it was AI and asked why it was not better than a real Monet. Well, the catch was that the ‘fake AI’ Monet was an actual Monet.

The controversy interests me because I see both colleagues and students who are very distrustful of AI generally. I’ve been all in on AI since 2022, but I have come to realize there are many negative aspects of the technology, not the least of which is the energy demand and the potential for human extinction. No small things, for sure!

That said, as I’ve noted before, I use AI and I appreciate what it can do for me. The fact that I can relate to the enthusiasm for AI, despite the obvious issues it creates, set me up to enjoy alll the haters getting owned online for criticizing a real Monet just because they thought it was AI derived. Seeing this also made me smile because at this point in my journey I’m sick and tired of people being against issues in a way I find overly simplistic.

The study makes the point that people are specifically biased against AI-created art. To quote the abstract, “Participants were unable to consistently distinguish between human and AI-created images. Furthermore, despite generally preferring the AI-generated artworks over human-made ones, the participants displayed a negative bias against AI-generated artworks when subjective perception of source attribution was considered, thus rating as less preferable the artworks perceived more as AI-generated, independently on their true source."

For me, this is a reminder to think more slowly and deliberately. And to verify before jumping to conclusions. Often, we cannot believe our eyes (or our ears, or our media, or other people). AI’s rapid improvement makes this even more necessary.

One of the books I am reading now, Neil Howe’s The Fourth Turning is Here, mentions a group called the Freedom House. They are a Washington DC based organization that studies freedom and democracy around the world and I had never heard of them before coming across their work in Howe’s book. According to their website, they are ‘founded on the core conviction that freedom flourishes in democratic nations where governments are accountable to their people.’ They were started in 1941 in order to help ‘raise awareness of the fascist threat to American security and values’ amidst the Nazi aggression that started World War II.

One of the things Freedom House does is rank the nations of the world with respect to the freedom experienced by the people living in those places. Number 1 on the list is Finland. Indeed, three of the top four most free countries in the world are Scandinavian. Not surprising. Canada is sitting pretty at #6. America is labeled ‘free’ but is ranked below more than 60 other countries, and recently earned its lowest rating ever. Hmmmm, I wonder why…

It is worth thinking about where these countries land with regards to the type of political economy they favor.

Below are the top ten lists from Freedom House and from the 2026 World Happiness Report.