Why Ai Will Never Get the Joke
A Human's Guide to Staying Real
A lot’s happened lately.
I keep piling more stuff on my plate—whoa, hot fart. Snuck up on the dog and me. Sitting here, minding our own, when a big deflator slips out—the kind you don’t know whether to trust until it’s too late.
Oh gawd, he’s doin’ fart jokes now?
Unsub…
Wait, I have a point, I swear! Stick with me.
Dog didn’t even notice.
Ai’s like that—barreling in, catching the world off guard, ready to knock the wind out of us all.
Ai is the fart. Society is the dog—clueless to the toxic cloud headed its way.
Wanna know the best part about a six-week, non-stop harvest from hell?
You forget there’s an election in three days.
Think the internet changed the game? Instagram? TikTok?
Sheeit.
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
I fret about a world that doesn’t need lawyers, surgeons, librarians, teachers, accountants—jobs vanishing like smoke, half the country out of work before anyone even realizes what’s happening.
And what are people doing?
Busy.
Glued to screens, soaking up the political circus, all thumbs up their asses, heads in the clouds.
Meanwhile, Ai lurks, winding up for the knockout punch.
And nobody’s watching.
Here I am, loving it and hating it all at once.
The other day, I posted an ad on a Facebook group, saying I’d write for folks if they needed words arranged.
Thought it’d be a simple gig, maybe connect with a few people.
Holy hell, the tigersharks came out of the woodwork.
Facebook people are ruthless—saying shit they’d never say to your face. And here’s the kicker—they’re using their real names. Bold as brass, tearing you down as if they’re critiquing a Banquet Salisbury steak.
Called me an idiot.
Said, “Why would we pay you when Ai’s free?”
Sure, Ai is free…fair point, Al Franken.
But here’s the thing: modern Ai writing?
Soulless.
Like chewing on a stale rice cake.
Bland.
Lifeless.
Safe.
Spits out words, sure, but where’s the flavor? The spark, the nonsense, the heartbeat?
You feed it a prompt, and out comes this text Frankenstein.
Polite.
Predictable.
Sanitized for your protection.
And here’s where it gets me: I love Ai. Love it.
It’s slingshotted my productivity.
Need a spreadsheet? Punch in a prompt, and watch it whip up columns, formulas, and formatting like it’s making pancakes.
I use Ai as a thought partner, asking, “Does this transition work?” “Would this article hit harder if I moved this chunk to the beginning?” or “Should I be concerned about this mole?”
Or whenever I need something simple—a to-do list or bullet points for a YouTube idea—Ai’s got me covered. I type in my half-baked thoughts, and bam—neatly organized notes, sweet as pie.
Doesn’t mean I actually follow the damn notes, though.
I still forget half of what I wanted to say, but it’s comforting knowing that Ai goes to all that trouble just to be ignored.
But this kind of efficiency? It’s a double-edged sword. Addictive—the speed, the ease. You start leaning on it, letting it fill in the gaps.
What happens to the craft?
What happens when the whole process is just prompts and responses, clean and tidy, with no rough edges, no accidental brilliance?
The convenience is intoxicating. I feed it more and more—like a bottomless pit with a gringo appetite for tacos.
Insatiable.
It’s easy to wonder… could this thing replace me?
No, hell no.
But…wait.
Can it?
Will it?
I think about this as I work, especially now, in harvest season.
Six straight weeks knee-deep in dust, hours alone with nothing but the machinery and my thoughts.
Harvest is bliss—no headlines, no notifications: just you, the land, and the machine.
But those thoughts keep creeping in like little worms squirming around in the back of my head.
Just twenty-five years ago, we made our own choices.
Now?
We’re cell phone zombies, scrolling and swiping away the boredom.
We became doomscrollers, prop-bet junkies, TikTok addicts. And now we’re looking at a future where we outsource our thoughts to machines.
The machine thinks, the machine learns, and we just…follow.
What then?
What’s left after that?
Imagine this: It’s 2033, and everyone has an Ai assistant. But we’re not talking about Siri reminding you of appointments or Alexa repeatedly playing Despacito.
No, I’m talking full-on, 24/7 digital butler—a life coach, a babysitter, your mom, and your therapist, all rolled into one.
You wake up, and your Ai’s already sent three emails, scheduled your dentist appointment, and bought you a gift for your mother-in-law’s birthday because it knows damn well you forgot.
It reminded you to shower this morning, like, “Good morning, Adam. Last shower: 74 hours ago. Time to suds up, big guy.”
Imagine Ai in your dating life. You think it’s hard now?
Ai will review your texts, optimize your flirting, and respond ideally to that late-night “U up?” message.
Hell, it might even break up with someone for you: “Hey babe, it’s not you, it’s the algorithm.”
Or take grocery shopping.
Your Ai assistant is in the grocery aisle with you, whispering in your ear, “Adam, put down the chips. The doctor’s appointment showed cholesterol up 2%. Consider the celery.”
You argue back, and it doesn’t care.
Your assistant knows you better than you know yourself.
“Remember how those last chips made you feel? Sluggish, bloated, and gassy at exactly 7:43 p.m. last Wednesday.”
God help you if you ignore it—the next thing you know, it’ll refuse to process the payment until you swap out the double-stuffed Oreos for something “less inflammatory.”
Sounds good until it isn’t—All fun and games til Ai caps your cookie consumption.
Next thing you know, you’re eating kale and tofu and cursing at a piece of software that somehow decided it knows best.
What will the world look like when Ai knows us better than we know ourselves?
When it starts making decisions based on patterns we didn’t even know we had?
Unintended consequences, knock-on effects, butterflies flapping their wings halfway around the world—it’s like standing at the edge of a cliff, staring down, knowing there’s no going back.
The crazy part?
Even AI can’t tell us where we’re headed. It speculates, sure, but it’s as clueless as a kid with a loaded gun, grinning, asking if it’s safe.
And yet, here we are, feeding it more, hoping it’ll spit out some meaning.
It’s a paradox, a thrill, a runaway train—teetering on the edge of terrifying.
Like most things, I jumped into this Ai business with both feet.
Figured, hey, it’s coming anyway, might as well hop on. I know I can’t outrun this train, but maybe I can hang on long enough to see where it’s going.
It’s a high-stakes game of chicken with the future.
But here’s the real kicker: can it replicate my voice? Anticipate my thoughts, the tangents, and the weird stuff that flies in from left field?
Sure, it can spit out words, but can it capture the Adam in those words?
The real me?
Who knows.
Maybe we’re watching the final act in a play where humans hand the keys to a machine.
Or maybe—just maybe—it’s a chance to find out what being human really means.
That’s the thing about Ai—like a cramp on a long bike ride—the more you fight, the more you bloat, seize up, and chafe.
At this point, we can only ride and see where it takes us—try to make peace with it…and hope the dog doesn’t notice the next fart.
The world’s changing, friend.
Question is—are you coming along?
You gave me chills. Valid chills
Wendell Berry said something to the effect that a time is coming when people will have to choose whether they want to live as machines or as human beings. When I look around I see a lot of people with their face in a machine.
Ive taught an English for IT class for first year international bachelor’s students for the last ten years, despite not knowing much about IT. I’ve learned a lot from talking with the students. One common theme I am continually confronted with and frustrated by are generic, chatbot-like phrases like, “technology is the future”. What the hell does that even mean? Im told repeatedly that there is an inevitability to it all, like it’s fate, that I recoil at.
Most of the homework they submit is chatbot written, and yes, I agree, it’s mind numbing, send your eyes to the back of your head garbage.
I know teachers that use chat bots to write their lessons, and then their students use them to write their homework. It begs the question as to what are we even doing anymore?
In Ted Kazinsky’s manifesto he writes that the danger isn’t that machines get beyond our control, like terminator. But rather that we will become so reliant on our machines that to turn them off would be suicide. They are, then, effectively in control. With stock trading at 90% automated and self driving tractors and cars, and chat bots to write (or help write) essays, we seem to be in a hostage state at this point. And rather than lean into it, I’d like to break free from the dependence as much as I can. Part of that is a commitment to not using AI for writing, even editing (beyond spellcheck). Whether you listen or not, it’s very good at nudging you in certain directions. It will know how to push your buttons. And a one degree difference on the course to the moon is to end up in another galaxy.