I’d wager that there’s very little overlap between people who love trees and people who love ChatGPT.

The more you’re in love with the really real, the more unattractive the artificial becomes. Wonder and awe are brilliant inoculations against the shiny new thing (unless that shiny new thing is a conker).

Chatbots prey upon the disenchanted. They’re a narcotic for the weary, the lonely, the too-busy – yet another way in which the symptom is covered over while the deeper issue goes untreated, unhealed. I don’t blame people for using them, I blame the tech companies who are exploiting our vulnerabilities for a profit, and to our ultimate diminishment.

You never needed chatbots before. You don’t need them now. Embrace the necessary friction of real creativity and relationships; protect your mind, your imagination, your human-ness. And while you’re at it, go find some trees.

Photo by Martyn Sanders.