Last week, Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic wrote an essay entitled “Welcome to a World Without Endings.” I love Warzel’s stuff. He writes at the intersections of technology and culture and—increasingly—the inevitable apocalypse. I often nod my head in agreement as I scroll through his essays.
In this particular one, Warzel wonders aloud about the future of the unhappy marriage between AI and art. Specifically, he asks us to consider what it means for our culture when any piece of art can be spun out ad infinitum.
Never again must we endure a series finale or a final chapter or even the edge of a canvas. Just generate spinoffs and subsequent seasons forever! After all, who leaves good “content” on the table? There’s never a need to end anything ever again.
“This is less about the end of art than the end of endings, brought to you by efficient production without limits,” he writes. “Art and creative work are businesses, after all. But it’s worth considering what is lost in a world led by people and technologies refusing to acknowledge human limits in favor of relentless, endlessly monetizable scale.”
It’s worth reading the full article—particularly in light of the ongoing writers strike. But his words—that invitation to consider what is lost in this refusal to acknowledge human limits—sent my own thoughts a-wandering.
Limits are important. In fact, I’d argue they’re essential to what make us human. Necessary limitations force us to make choices.
Now, my five-year-old will say, “But Dad, I don’t want to choose between cake and ice cream. I want both.” And to that I say, “You’re lucky you’re getting dessert at all.”
But choices necessarily make us who we are. (Too much cake and ice cream make us sick.) Necessary limitations force us to make choices, and choices make us, us—the culmination of unique decisions made in unique circumstances based on our own unique experiences, priorities, interests and desires. If we didn’t have to make these choices, we’d lose an essential avenue through which we manifest our unique selves to the world.
We’re time-based creatures. By that I mean we have an expiration date. Time is a limited resource—a necessary limitation—and how we use that time leaves a irreplicable trail of existential bread crumbs.
This fact forces us to grapple with why. Not, Why don’t we have more time? But rather, Why do we use it the way we do? We have to ask ourselves this question, otherwise against what standard do we make our decisions?
These necessary limitations force us to chart a path through life, the fruit of which is us—you and me, all that we are and will be.
Here’s an image: Think of all the air in your lungs. Someone—let’s say that same dessert-crazed five-year-old—hands you a colorful piece of rubber. You blow a certain amount of air into that rubber, and—wow!—you’ve got yourself a balloon.
But if nothing was handed to you, there were no parameters set around the air you were exhaling, you’d just be breathing out into the void. You’d be alive, sure. But nothing would take shape.
Here’s the other thing: Remember how many times I used the word “unique” a couple of paragraphs ago? That was only partially lazy writing. We all want to be unique; I think we all are. But if we didn’t have to make choices, if we really could do it all, be it all, have it all, wouldn’t we all be kinda the same? Wouldn’t the world be a boring place?
I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t all have what we need to lead flourishing lives. Of course we should. But the time I dedicate to writing is time I don’t have to dedicate to figure skating. I’m okay with that—but that’s a choice. I will never be a world-class figure skater. But I might become a half-decent writer.
AI hasn’t created time travel yet, which is arguably what I’d need at this point to become both a writer and figure skater. But the general mindset persists—and this is what’s dangerous: We want to have it all. We want to avoid closing any chapters, ending any stories. And we are determined to bend time and space to get that wish.
Necessary limitations force us to make choices. To develop skills that are different from those of our neighbors. To have experiences that are different from those of our colleagues. To invest time in relationships that are different from those prioritized by our parents or our kids.
Without the need for these kinds of choices, without the necessary opportunities presented to take a path different from our neighbors, we become more and more alike—and not in a good way. Distinctions blur. Uniqueness blurs. We become the very thing we are so desperately trying to prove that we’re not: artificial intelligence.
Because at the cocktail parties of life, we don’t want to talk to a machine. We don’t want to talk to a group of people who have all had the exact same experiences we’ve had. Who have the exact same insights that we do. Who do the exact same things for a living and have been to the exact same places. Who simply one-up our story with one of their own.
This is mere information sharing.
We don’t want to hear about what you’ve done. To paraphrase leadership guru Simon Sinek’s essential TED Talk, we want to hear about why. And why only comes when we weigh options and decide against other paths. Why comes not from having all the information and experience and insight but from understanding why some of that information, experience and insight matters to you.
At the end of the day, I don’t think we’re wired to do it all, to have it all. We keep looking for joy and happiness and fulfillment out there. But in fact, that journey out there is a never-ending boondoggle. Happiness is already here, waiting. Too often, all those many options out there are mere distractions from this simple truth.
Here’s the temptation of this ad infinitum approach to life’s stories: If we don’t make those choices—if we don’t accept those necessary limitations and end that boondoggle—then we’ll never come back from it. We’ll float in oblivion, never accepting limits, never eliminating options, never finding fulfillment.
Like a robot in space.
I’ve done some other writing since last we spoke. Check it out.
Some lessons from watching lions sleep in a tree over at IgnatianSpirituality.com.
Why my wife is a much better person than me, the disembarking from an airplane edition.
Oh—I also won some awards for my book Cannonball Moments: Telling Your Story, Deepening Your Faith.