How do you robot?
Plus Forced Joy and Soft Skills at the office
Welcome to Mess & Noise. Last issue was a mish-mashed zeitgeist report and it flopped fantastically. If you’re new here, I also write about raising kids in the attention economy and being a working parent in NYC. I recently dropped a workplace guidebook called Pushing Back with Tact, which you can snatch up here for free. Paid subscribers will receive the first installment of my new essay series tomorrow.
Open call
After reading about Virginia Heffernan’s uncanny Claude glitch, and Ray, Anne Kadet’s “AI chatbot friend who lives on ChatGPT,” I got nosy curious about how my friends are using LLMs in personal ways; meaning non-professional, but not life-admin, but also not completely weird ways. (Interactive journaling, interpersonal dilemma-solving, venting, advice, etc.)
If this sounds like you and you wouldn’t mind chatting, please reach out! I’ve had a few fun conversations so far and I’m looking forward to putting together a trend piece on how women (and maybe dudes!) are using ChatGPT, Claude, or any other lifeless machine to help them with this thing called life.
I happen to like New York
Tomorrow, paid subscribers will receive the first installment of Poor Bastard, a monthly personal essay that I’m loath to call my memoir. This first essay is about New York, or as E.B. White called it, “the city that is a goal.”
White also said it’s a city that can destroy an individual or fulfill them, depending on a good deal of luck. What’s more entertaining than bad luck?
Read all about the city’s intent to murder me (broken limbs, near-asphyxiation by my own scarf caught in a cab door, getting knocked unconscious outside Veniero’s by an unhoused person) during the first year back after my cushy California displacement.
In the meantime, I’m reading:
What Went Wrong at Saudi Arabia’s Futuristic Metropolis in the Desert. Does McKinsey do anything besides say Yes to deluded rich people and charge hundreds of millions for the hassle?
Depression isn’t as simple as a chemical imbalance. This article doesn’t get into environmental/social/economic factors, but alludes to them as “stressful life events.” A few weeks ago I chatted with a therapist who was despairing over her clients’ despair. “They’re sad about things we can’t do anything about, and there’s no talking your way out of that.”
Related: Eating alone, in the Anti-Social Century.
R.I.P. Forever 21 and the Planned Parenthood on Bleecker Street. These were two staples of my wellbeing throughout my 20’s (and I shopped F21 well into my 30’s!)
How T.D. Bank became the go-to for money launderers.
Has anyone read Careless People yet? I’ve heard mixed reactions.
Better start practicing your Defiant Jazz moves! Forced Joy has returned to office.
Speaking of RTO, I loved this essay on the re-embrace of “Soft Skills.” I felt especially called out when the writer wondered if it’s just an older generation of workers placing unnecessary emphasis on decorum and interpersonal skills because we’re scared of a future where those things become obsolete…Have I mentioned my new guidebook, Pushing Back with Tact?
The AI-powered “schools” founded by Space X alums who want to replace human teachers.
👋 Oh Hello New Subs! 👋
First and foremost thank you Eileen N. for becoming a founding member! If I ever start a Signal group full of sensitive information, I’m adding you first. Thanks also to Earl B. and Sidereal Books. Stoked to have you here.
That’s all for this one.
Your piece, "How Do You Robot?", offers a thought-provoking exploration of our interactions with technology. Your insights encourage readers to reflect on their own relationships with digital tools and the evolving nature of human-tech dynamics. This perspective is particularly relevant in today's rapidly advancing technological landscape.