We were not made to keep up with machines

Is a technological life compatible with a writing life?

We are standing at the precipice of a problematic, techno-anxious age.

But perhaps we have been here longer than we care to remember.

In the last century, our relationship with machines has continually made us feel like we can be more than we are. Our washing machines encourage us to buy more clothes. Our cars, planes and trains enable us to travel further. Our computers help us to write faster. The internet has meant we can keep in touch with everyone and everything more frequently - without pause. There are machines working tirelessly for us day and night, on every corner of the globe, scanning the earth and seabeds for elements which mean we can produce more and more and more of things we don’t need, and thus go faster through life, albeit with less thought or care.

But we were not made to keep up with machines.

When we say we want our children to have a childhood, we mean that we want them to dig in the dirt, run in the rain, play in the sand. We want them to feel the air caressing the softness of their skin. Stick their tongues out in the sprinklers. Wade in the rivers. Lie in snow and make angels of themselves. Breathe and breathe and breathe in all the scents of the earth.

We know the true joys of life, and we want that for our children.

As adults, do we still dare to dream of it for ourselves?

So many of our days have become welded to technology, as though machines are indispensable extensions of our minds, our bodies, our ability to function. They lure us to them by offering us back our time, but they also waste our lives - because we must learn how to use them, spend money on fixing them, find places to store or dispose of them. We must carry their weight. They entice us with promises of entertainment and connection to one another, until - eventually, reluctantly - we turn away from the screen and find ourselves sitting in the dark, alone.

And the worst thing we can ever feel, after being at one with the machine and experiencing so many possibilities of connection, is alone. So, as soon as we can, we turn the machine back on. Forgetting that self-love can often make a home in loneliness. If we dare to wait long enough; if we are brave enough to explore.

Machines come with a dark side, and right now they are more talented than our species has ever been: capable of outsmarting, outgunning, outlasting us.
Does this mean that to keep up with them we must do things faster and faster, spinning ourselves out of control, beyond all self-recognition - or do we want to imagine our futures differently?

One of our collective missions as writers is to represent, celebrate and interrogate the human experience, whether we write of past, present or future. How depressing to think of AI taking over, delivering us into a future of regurgitated thoughts, no matter how clever they are, when we can offer one another endless ways back to ourselves, right now - through our excitement, love, laughter, contemplation, insights, fears and curiosity. Until we can’t help but know in our bones how important it is not to outsource our thoughts or the simple joys of our lives.

If the machine writes for us, parodying our voices, what will we ever learn?

It has never been more crucial to be mindful of how we live our lives and the way we value and spend our time. Because we have no choice: we must spend our time, we can’t hoard it - and our supply is finite. And while we might never have to be bored any more, because there are limitless options to fill our lives and entertain ourselves, the overwhelm of choice is paralysing in a whole new way. And yet we still understand how important it is to have enough mental space for ideas to coalesce and manifest themselves. In the gaps of our busy lives, we continue to search for those quieter places, those steadfast ways to let our words come in a gentle rhythm rather than a frantic rush. We know our words will always string themselves together best when given due care and diligence, with enough space to explore and rearrange themselves and their meaning, until it all finally feels satisfying and true.

We might not have all the answers about where machines might lead us, but nor do we have to walk the paths laid out before us without questions. Let us speak and think and write and listen our way through this, towards deeper, more comfortable positions - because the rising, inestimable power of machines makes it more important than ever for us to purposefully seek out life-affirming and enduring human connections.

And if we can be grateful for anything in this techno-anxious age, it’s that.

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I drafted this just before reading that a Melbourne-based published Black Inc. gave authors only a few days’ notice to sign AI amendments to contracts, which has been flagged as deeply concerning (see this article from the Guardian and the Australian Society of Authors’ response telling authors what they need to know.)

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