The Butt Ugly Weblog

Quick shower thought

If something is so dull and dreary we'd rather delegate it to an AI, then wouldn't we be happier if we could like, not do that thing at all?

Yeah, I know, there is actual value in boredom as well. One exercise that we do frequently when learning long form improv is that we try to do examine what boredom feels like, and how we cope with that. Boredom creates breathing space; it is the stuff that makes the busy days feel meaningful. It is so easy to dig out your phone and just be mildly engaged with endless short form videos, which creates a new level of a boredom continuum, one in which you don't realize you're bored.

But still. I'm thinking that many things that we do might not actually be that necessary. They are just "form over function", rather than a load- or joy-bearing component of the world. So rather than "optimize" them using AI, perhaps we could just not do those things at all?

(I'm being purposefully a bit vague here, since I don't want to point to any particular thing and say that that's useless. That would probably go into a tangent. But you can imagine stuff. You're human.)