Writing Boots

It’s the holidays and I’m trying to run a company, record the Audible version of my book and rant and rave over the imbecility of adults buying gifts for adults who are perfectly capable of buying things of their own.

I don’t have essays, I have thoughts. (Barely.)

First of all, the next person who says someone “gifted us” a dining room set or a dildo, is going to get it, right in the gift-hole.

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“Affordability” isn’t a hoax, “hoax” is a hoax.

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Hey, didja hear ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman tell Jimmy Fallon this week that he’s worried about “just the rate of change that’s happening in the world right now,” cuz of AI? “The rate at which jobs will change over may be pretty fast. I have no doubt that we’ll figure out all new jobs to do and I hope, much better jobs.”

Does Altman also tell his children he’s pretty sure there’s not a monster under the bed, but if there is, he hopes its teeth aren’t very big?

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And finally, this is a sincere crowdsourcing question: Asking for a married couple, halfway between 55 and 60, who aren’t exactly hard of hearing (yet), but who both struggle to hear the first thing the other one says. So, a lot of conversations begin, frustratingly, with “What?” It’s as if the ears are good but the minds need an alert: “Honey, I am going to begin transmitting.” (“What?”) Has anyone else experienced this, or should this poor couple should start looking into assisted living now?

CEOs are not good at reassuring employees about how AI won’t ruin their way of life. We’ve established that, over and over.

Next up, Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison, who said at a conference this week that the retailer isn’t looking to use AI to reduce its workforce, but rather, to make every employee into a bionic revenue-generating mo-chine. “Can we now free a merchant up who’s spending 50% of their time building spreadsheets, responding to emails, communicating with suppliers?” Ellison asked rhetorically. “If AI can take that task away, can you now take 50% of that merchant’s time, and they can focus on sales-driving initiatives? That’s what we’re trying to understand.”

Let’s start with “merchant”—a term execs at big retailers use to cheaply and flaccidly glorify their store workers as being part of a rich ancient tradition evoking the Maritime Silk Road, but amounting to a hill of shit. Imagine asking a woman in a bar what she does for a living and her saying, “Oh, I’m a merchant at Home Depot.” If she wouldn’t call herself a merchant with a straight face, how can you call her a merchant with a straight face? (I’ve never heard someone tell me he’s an “associate at Walmart,” either.)

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Onto Marvin Ellison’s hypothetical “merchant”: Knowing what I know about the sort of folks who work at Lowe’s, where I shop all the time, I can tell you: If “they” were the type of hard-charger who wanted to focus 100% of the time on sale-driving initiatives, they would work on sales commission, somewhere else, where coffee is for closers.

In truth, however, “they” like building spreadsheets, responding to emails and communicating with suppliers. In fact, if you asked them their favorite part of their job, they would probably actually say, “Building spreadsheets, responding to emails and communicating with suppliers.” And they might even add that their job would be just about perfect, if they didn’t have to spend part of it “on these fucking sale-driving initiatives.”

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Rather than using AI to turn employees into human revenue pigs—it might be more humane just to replace them with revenue-snuffling robots, and give them back their days.