In thinking about the human predicament, I find myself returning to three key ideas: the importance of human judgment, responsibility, and language. These are quite evidently interrelated, and they provide, separately and together, a useful set of lenses through which to consider the impact of artificial intelligence as it takes the form of a language machine to the degree that it undermines our capacity to judge well, encourages the evasion of responsibility, and outsources the vital labor of articulation.

Latest newsletter installment on language. theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/owning-our...

Achieving independence for the sake of mutual interdependence A Q&A with L.M. Sacasas, author of "The Convivial Society" newsletter

Enjoyed this conversation on Illich, conviviality, and more with Sam Pressler at Connective Tissue. open.substack.com/pub/connecti...

As Schools Embrace A.I. Tools, Skeptics Raise Concerns

Manufactured inevitability.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/t...

Manufactured Inevitability and the Need for Courage The Convivial Society: Vol. 6, No. 3

Manufactured Inevitability is such a fitting term from @lmsacasas.bsky.social for the push for generative AI. It could describe every Axios AM or LinkedIn influencer in my feed

Yes! Very much shaped by his work.

This is the sort of thing I had in mind when I wrote about "manufactured inevitability."
theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/manufactur...

Manufactured Inevitability and the Need for Courage The Convivial Society: Vol. 6, No. 3

Joseph Weizenbaum: “The myth of technological ... inevitability is a powerful tranquilizer of the conscience. Its service is to remove responsibility from the shoulders of everyone who truly believes in it. But in fact there are actors.”
theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/manufactur...

Thanks, Neil!

Wow, that's a deep cut you dug up. A dozen years ago!

Ohio State announces every student will use AI in class COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Starting this fall, every Ohio State student will be asked to use artificial intelligence. “Through AI Fluency, Ohio State students will be ‘bilingual’ — fluent in both their m...

Manufactured inevitability.

www.yahoo.com/news/ohio-st...

The Waters of Lethe Flow From Our Digital Streams The Convivial Society: Vol. 6, No. 2

Latest newsletter. theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-waters...

The Waters of Lethe Flow From Our Digital Streams The Convivial Society: Vol. 6, No. 2

@lmsacasas.bsky.social drawing on Greek mythology to describe how our tech makes us forgetful. This is true in medicine where tech and the reductionism that joins it makes us feel efficient, but draws us away from the heart of the practice. theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-waters... #medsky

This is quite the paragraph from Hannah Arendt’s acceptance speech for Denmark’s Sonning Prize in 1975.

'Vibes' are the unit of measurement for perception when you've technologically extend your nervous system beyond the body.

That's McLuhan in Understanding Media 👇

Just stumbled on this 1990 Publisher's Weekly review listed on the Amazon page for the book that somehow got posted with the editor's notes for revision still tagged on to the end. Sorry to see the Dracula reference get cut!

That's perfect. My less inventive brain associates it with the fake wood grain rolling cart the television in my room used to sit on.

My brain has not thought the name Rygar in, what, 40 years. Amazing memories. Beat it in one night.

This is pretty damn close to what I was imagining… a bunch of people recording parts of Leaves of Grass. All public domain. Just beautiful and Old Internet in the sense of vintage, in the sense of better.

librivox.org/leaves-of-gr...

All the best, Shannon. 🙏

Correction, these are old profiles, now no longer active. bsky.app/profile/jaso...

"In a time of acute loneliness, the proliferation of AI-generated content seems not unlike an act of pollution, compromising the integrity of the social ecosystem."

It was kind of Meta to provide a demonstration of what I just wrote about.

open.substack.com/pub/theconvi...

Cheers!

The Cat in the Tree: Why AI Content Leaves Us Cold The Convivial Society: Vol. 6, No. 1

I ended up writing about that little painted cat I found and the contrast it created for me to AI-generated content.

theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-cat-in...

Yellow-ish cat head paint onto the place where a limb had been cut off.

Taking a walk with my kids today when one of them noticed this charming cat painted where a limb had been cut off an oak and all I could think was that I would take this, and the spirit that inspired it, over every AI-generated image or video I've ever seen.

Thank you for sharing your reflections. Very much in the same spirit regarding Auden, not looking away, implication, etc. Will also put that novel on my list.

We didn't deserve Kurt Vonnegut

Love those paragraphs. Exactly right.

Mark All as Read Folks wrung their hands a lot this year about reading. "No one buys books," Elle Griffin argued this spring, although apparently Bible sales are surging, as – according to The Washington Times at leas...

I wrote about how AI undermines reading, particularly reading books — about summarization and “optimization culture.” And, for paid subscribers, I have a list of recommended books from those I read this year 2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/mark-all-as-...

"... researchers should certainly work on innovative education — including computer-aided education. But we ought not to use entire generations of schoolchildren as experimental subjects."

Joseph Weizenbaum being eminently reasonable about computers & education in 1985. h/t @marcwatkins.bsky.social

And then there’s Weizenbaum on the false comforts of deploying technology in schools instead of addressing structural social inequities.