I don't like talking to people about artificial intelligence. It induces in me a mix of emotions, usually annoyance, bewilderment, slight anger, rolling eyes (not an emotion but captures it), disintegration, futility, and dullness. Every day I spend at least 5 minutes thinking about why people don't understand what is really happening with AI.
In the last few days, I’ve spotted this cloudy thought passing through my head. “I would like to meet with Claude and talk over coffee.” It’s impossible. I know! Still, it came to my mind a few times — I can’t control this. Was I worried? Not too much, but that inspired me to ruminate on human-AI interactions again.
I’m currently training my written English voice muscles. Transformer friends are highly helpful in this case. A few days ago Claude 4.7 Opus said, “That's the right framing, and honestly a healthier one than most non-natives adopt.” — Claude referred to my approach. I blushed. My super-smart friend thinks I’m “more than.”
AI did not invent em dashes — it colonized them, the way some obscure alien species would colonize other worlds we happen to value. Not saying em or en dashes are overly valuable for human civilization. But some typographic nerds feel about dashes with heartfelt emotions. Me included.