What Fades When Meaning, Choice, and Taste Come Prepackaged?
An ode to the art and nostalgia of discovery without technology
My daughter’s current obsession is TLC. Of course, CrazySexyCool was an iconic part of my musical upbringing. Recently, I shared that my friends and I once thought the lyrics were “don’t go Jason Waterfalls” instead of “don’t go chasing waterfalls.”
She found this incredulous. After explaining why we didn’t just Google the lyrics in 1994, I let her in on how so much of my free time was consumed by listening to and dissecting music with friends. At the time, it made perfect sense to us — the lyrics were directed to Jason. The discussion was part of the album’s allure.
Now, not only can my daughter Google lyrics, but she can have the meaning served up on an “AI Overview” platter. It’s efficient, but it lacks the art of discovery.
The degradation of discovery is already in full force. Instead of competing with our phones, TV shows and films reflect our divided attention. Voices narrate what’s happening on screen, so we can follow along while scrolling. Even books lean into this by spelling out character backstories and motivations, instead of letting us unearth these little mysteries or fill in the gaps through imagination.
If we pair this with what we’re consuming on social media — a churn of new content — our world is being dictated to us, not discovered.
As I unspool what discovery means to me, I can’t help but revisit the quote from The Devil Wears Prada about the lumpy blue, or rather cerulean sweater:
“That blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs. And it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff.”
Take the current obsession with 1950s butter yellow.
In response to the collective mood, creators, artists, designers pull from their archives, history, and minds to find inspiration. Enter butter yellow — it’s sunny, understated, nostalgic. This feeds into advertising, fashion, paint colors, and more.
With a little algorithm magic, butter yellow is everywhere; the more we see it, the more familiar it feels, and the more familiar it feels, the more we like it. There’s awareness that we’ve long been influenced by tastemakers, media, social paradigms, and what’s in our proximity. Yet, there’s still a little discovery, a little novelty in finding a trend, stumbling upon an item you like, unraveling the clues in a story, or piecing together a lyric’s meaning.
Now imagine we have AI concierges to do all this for us — selecting our clothing, vetting potential dates, summarizing books, curating our playlists, building meal plans, and so on. We may even have an implant or physical attachment, like glasses, to receive this information in real-time. While some of this sounds nice, if we give everything to AI, even if it’s tailored, where’s the discovery? Where’s the meandering?
There are few things I love more than meandering through an antique store. It’s my current day scouring MySpace for obscure artists and poets. Through unfiltered exploration, I get to say — hey, I love this.
Even more importantly, all of these tiny discoveries coalesce in my mind.
Each person has unique lived experiences, influences, and preferences. While AI is useful, I find it muddles my voice. It doesn’t have my knowledge, memory, and intuition. When I create, I roam the expanses of my mind. I pick things from different rooms and eras. I hold them up to each other, saying yes or no, before continuing on. Sometimes, I run through the halls to a specific moment or emotion. Creativity for me is putting all the things I’ve amassed together in a way only I could.
I don’t want well-prompted ChatGPT. I want the thing that’s burning your soul.
For all the doom and gloom that new technology portends, our minds are the best defense. As long as we don’t abandon our wits, we have a place in society and work.
Hi, I’m Courtney. I’ve spent over a decade in tech companies as a Head of People and startup fixer, working directly with founders. My founders have been featured in Fast Company, Fortune, Inc., People, and more.
This was originally published at https://community.evermore.so.
