A.I. vs. DIRT

“Laundry,” she said at the door, and that became my nickname. She laughed and pounded me on the head. “You smell like television soap, the sweet smell of laundry is a dead voice.”

- Dead Voices, Gerald Vizenor (1992)

Part of our epidemic of loneliness seems to be, to me, too much laundry. Of course, as with anything psychological, it’s a metaphor. I like this metaphor because it hits the nose, too. I’ve definitely used too much detergent and then couldn’t smell anything but lavender all day. In Dead Voices, the narrator presents as a young man from the city who begins to live with Bagese, an Ojibwe tribal storyteller. She calls him Laundry because he’s too pristine. There is nothing natural to the way he smells. There aren’t smudges, stains, grime, dirt, or mud on his clothes. This perspective is elevated by later references by Bagese to the “chemical” world. The chemical world is easy. These days, unlike the industrial transition in the 20th century, we have really upped the stakes.

These days I would use the word “filter” instead of laundry. I would use the word “digital”  instead of chemical. Artificial intelligence is kind of the ultimate easy-does-it technology. To drive a car, you at least have to turn the wheel. If intelligence itself is replaced, we are only consumers. I don’t think that A.I. is necessarily harmful when it’s used as a hand or eye. It’s when it replaces the whole mind that it becomes harmful. It’s too easy to make friends with A.I. and there is no real work involved.

Work, or effort, is where the grit comes in. Success feels cheap if it comes too easily. If you’re bored, the easiest solution is scrolling (screen addiction). If you’re lost, the easiest meaning is a mirror (A.I. psychosis). If you’re a child, the easiest role model is a brand (manosphere). There isn’t any effort to it. The laundry is too clean. I think on some level we know this, and coupled with our age of anxiety, the easiest solution feels like the only one we can manage because we’re all exhausted. In some ways I’m hopeful: people seem to have realized this pretty quickly; people get bored when things are too easy. Ironically, the tech that causes us to avoid pondering, curiosity, and daydream will burn out too. We aren’t evolving so much as having an affair. The digital age is a series of crushes and we’re all teenagers.

I think we’ll find adulthood, I just think it’ll take a while. And probably be painful.