Our Stupid Delusions
I will always tell you if you have spinach in your teeth
Heads up: this post starts being about AI, but— don’t worry— it is not about AI. If for some wild reason you haven’t read enough rants against using AI for creative purposes here you go:
I remember when someone explained to me—I don’t know, several years ago now—that the word delusional now had a cute nickname: delulu. That’s when I knew they must have built a new fast track to hell. If being unable to comprehend reality gets a cute re-branding, you can be sure the fascists are winning.
Friday night I was having dinner with four of my favorite people in Mexico City. One of those people is the mother of another one of those people, and while mom person was putting the small person to bed, the rest of us somehow started talking about AI even though I am strongly done with having conversations about AI. (Yes, let it cure cancer, let it invent something that removes trash from the ocean, No, I don’t want it to raise children or teach or be therapists or do anything creative. Done. We’re DONE. I AM DONE TALKING ABOUT THIS.)
I was, perhaps, a little shocked that my friend (the one I often call my very-young very-cool friend) confessed that he uses AI to “develop” ideas and “organize” his thoughts or something. Not to actually write stuff, he qualified, but…
My eyes glazed over and I broke into a mild sweat. Was I upset at him for using ChatGPT to do his thinking? No. Well, sort of, but I was more pissed off because I was going to have to, yet again, deliver the lecture about how learning to develop your own ideas and organize your weirdass thoughts is an invaluable part of developing your brain, your filter, your ability to discern real shit from fake shit, and the more you outsource that part of a creative process, the more you are creating a dependence, the more the AI is training you to think like it and not like you.
I was about to say something about how interstitial processes are not to be rushed through,1 that liminal states are the creative process, and that’s where all the good ideas are, and that’s also why being in analysis feels so weird and uncomfortable and yet helpful,2 because it’s neither an internal nor entirely external conversation or monologue, and anyway I was about to say something like that, but then I thought, Oh no, I’m going to throw up.
And I did! I went to my friend’s bathroom and hurled, and honestly I had been feeling sick for a couple days so it wasn’t like the LLM conversation was responsible for it, but I also have no problem blaming LLMs for this, because I do think it’s funny that this was the moment my body gave out.
Have I mentioned how much I hate it when people I love are being delusional? Other people, fine, whatever, let them have their delusions. Let the whole world melt into a fashionably numb blasé puddle of delulu, but my friends?? Not on my watch. Zoe was pointing this out to me recently, saying it is no secret that I have a tendency to really fucking tell a friend exactly what I think of some ill-advised choice they’re making. This has gotten me into trouble, of course, but for the most part this is the kind of treatment I also expect my friends to give me, and thank god some of them have done so. I don’t think I’ve ever had a sincere argument with a stranger on the internet, but I don’t really hold back when someone I love is doing something I find unreasonably stupid, like languishing in a relationship that does not respect their radiance, or falling into one of our many contemporary scams, or not applying for a fucking grant they’re eligible for, or using LLMs in their creative work.3
It was perhaps appropriate that my human and then faltering body was what prevented me from fully explaining to my friend that he was being delusional about the utility of trying to escape his own mortal, imperfect thoughts. My friends all sat with me on the couch, gave me tea, and waited til I was unwoozy enough to go home.
But the thing was— my dog is really sick right now, and my husband was out of town, and I was afraid I would get sick again at home and not be able to take care of my dog, so one of my friends escorted me home, made sure I got settled without falling into a heap on the floor, then she helped take care of the dog, too. I was so thankful to have a friend like her I could have just crumpled on the floor and kissed her toes.
In fact, that very morning, when I’d woken up and found my dog in a horrible state (not going into detail; too sad) I didn’t know what to do, and the answer ended up being that a friend who lives a half hour away drove down to my neighborhood, picked us up, took us to a vet, made sure nothing got lost in translation, brought us home, then sat with me for an hour to have tea and toast, even though it was already early afternoon and she’d thrown out her whole day just to help me out.
When Daniel, my husband, told his aunt and grandma (whom he was visiting in Spain) that our friend had helped us out like this, their response was something like, Oh, that’s so Mexican. Nobody would do that here.
I don’t think it’s true that nobody in Spain would drop what they were doing at nine in the morning to come help you do some sad but necessary chore, but I will say it does seem rather Mexican to be, what— very kind? Invested in one’s community? Ready to do something caring for a friend?
I used to be delusional about what friendship is or could be, and living here has made me see how wrong I was in the past to never (if I could help it) ask a friend help. I’ve always had this really strong streak of do-it-yourself stubbornness. I suppose such staunch independence might lead a person to write novels, and I quite like writing novels, but I am not the first person to notice that even a person’s strongest qualities often come smuggling their own set of delusions.
Last Saturday, after my LLM-conversation-induced illness, two of my other closest friends came over with supplies for me and my sick dog, both of us pathetic and nearly motionless in the living room. They came over because I asked them to, because nobody is going to telepathically know that you’re sick and arrive with the proper provisions. Both friends also brought flowers, and one of them even hung out with my dog and took care of him so I could take a sorely needed three hour nap. Falling asleep I felt horrible, physically, but I also felt totally great knowing that I know people who will help me—and I hope also criticize me—when I need it.
(The ending paragraph of this post is behind a paywall because that’s where I always put the most embarrassing bits.)