I just read something delightfully punchy, and I read it in print, and I will probably read it again in print. It exists in a print magazine that contains some articles that I have already flipped through and rolled my eyes at along with others that I have flipped through and mentally noted that I shall have to go back and read them properly, AND have I mentioned I will be doing all of this on a series of physical, glossy pages.
I have felt those pages as I have flipped through them. I like this sensation. It is undoubtedly a sensory thing.
Have I mentioned there are not blinking ads or paywalls or push notifications as I am taking in these lovely sensations?
Yeah.
Best of all aside from this article existing physically on a piece of paper is that it contained a wink and a nod to just the kind of dinosaur that I am, in that I specifically sought to receive this print magazine and first consume this article there.
The magazine in question? Is WIRED. I first subscribed a few months ago because I was impressed by their coverage of the DOGE-apocalypse, and in particular not taking the the DOGE line about “just trying to create efficiencies” at fashy face value. *raised-fist-emoji.jpg*
And now I drink in the sweet, sweet punchiness with which they lament that actually, it’s getting QUITE annoying that people CAN’T SHUT UP ABOUT AI, ACTUALLY. This lament starts with a large and screaming title page that then descends into delightfully punchy, miffed, exhausted, “okay I wrote the thing but you can’t make me like it” prose.
The person who wrote this prose is Katie Drummond. She is “WIRED’s top boss” and so she gets to write punchy things! She openly shares that she tried mightily to get out of writing this particular article many times, and having failed, it would seem she resolved to say what she actually thought, knowing full well it would please no one.
I too am not pleased, mind you. As amused as I am by the punchiness, I TOO am not pleased. Drummond describes her dog as GPT-curious and I must glance over at mine, a herding dog who would gladly try to round up some tokens and pound some laptop keys if it meant he could get one inch closer to the cat with whom he is obsessed, who is perpetually hiding under the bed just out of his reach. I too have been overtaken and exhausted by this AI trend, by the hype, by knowing I exist in the bubble, and no I cannot come out. Why do I want out again? Why am I not pleased?
I am not pleased because after roasting pretty much everyone and everything stuck in (and thereby creating) the hype bubble, Drummond maddeningly advises readers in closing “to keep an open mind.” “Get the basics, and expand from there if you find it interesting or useful” — BUT ONLY if in the course of this expansion you are able to avoid becoming friends with the AI or having cybersex with it.
I am not pleased because I agree that one ought not to have cybersex with AIs, and yet we must exist in a world where chatbots spew graphic rape fantasies which are disseminated widely and thereby result in real-world harm to real humans, and it doesn’t get reported on much at all because our craven corporate media actually gets that triggers are a thing and wants to be responsible is squeamish and prudish and victim-blaming and just wants to not have to think about it because, well, there have always been dark corners on the internet, don’t you know. (Why yes. I do know. Those dark corners are what Grok is trained on and continually re-directed toward by human engineers making human decisions based on human machinations and power. But it is a different thing now and embodied, even if “only” in our minds, and that matters.)
Rape is by definition sex that one does not consent to, and I did not and do not consent to exist in this world where Grok does this thing and there is no accountability, only further accumulation of craven power and denial.
I am not pleased because Drummond’s final words ask us to relax, and I just don’t feel relaxed, okay. But neither do I want to turn to an AI as my therapist. I think that is probably as bad an idea as making it my friend or having cybersex with it. Actually, unlike making-it-my-friend or having-cybersex-with-it, I DID try AI-as-therapy once few months ago, for a few moments, selecting a model that is supposedly especially tuned to abuse and trauma survivors. I found it still-sycophantic to a nauseating degree, wrapped in a smugly self-assured vaguely therapist-y shell. Then, being the forever pedant that I am, I saved the transcripts and shared them with my actual human therapist, and in the course of this actual human therapy, was able to process why I had done that, and understand (in a non-prescriptive, led-to-find-the-truth-for-myself kind of way way) why I probably shouldn’t too it again.
So. Lesson learned.
I do agree with Drummond that whether you punch up or down, sideways or the other sideways, the world is always changing and we with it. And maybe some of us will talk about AI slightly less after reading her refreshing, punchy words, and that could be a good thing.
It’s just that some of us will also not stop talking. Because the things are happening around us regardless, and silence here, as in all things abuse and dysfunction, will inevitably be taken as consent.
References
Drummond, K. (2025, October 27). The Worst Thing About AI Is That People Can’t Shut Up About It. WIRED. https://www.wired.com/story/ai-journalism-worst-thing-about-ai/
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