Will Farmers Grow AI Okra?
November 20, 2025
A VP at Land O’ Lakes laments US farmers’ hesitance to turn their family farms into high-tech agricultural factories. In a piece at Fast Company, writer and executive Brett Bruggeman insists “It’s Time to Rethink Ag Innovation from the Ground Up.” Yep, time to get rid of those pesky human farmers who try to get around devices that prevent tinkering or unsanctioned repairs. Humans can’t plow straight anyway. As Bruggeman sees it:
“The problem isn’t a lack of ideas. Every year, new technologies emerge with the potential to transform how we farm, from AI-powered analytics to cutting-edge crop inputs. But the simple truth is that many promising solutions never scale, not because they don’t work but because they can’t break through the noise, earn trust, or integrate into the systems growers rely on.”
Imagine that. Farmers are reluctant to abandon methods that have worked for decades. So how is big-agro-tech to convince these stubborn luddites? You have to make them believe you are on their side. The post continues:
“Bringing local agricultural retailers and producers together for pilot testing and performance discussions is central to finding practical and scalable solutions. Sitting at the kitchen table with farmers provides invaluable data and feedback—they know the land, the seasons, and the day-to-day pressures associated with the crop or livestock they raise. When innovation flows through this channel, it’s far more likely to be understood, adopted, and create lasting value. … So, the cooperative approach offers a blueprint worth considering—especially for industries wrestling with the same adoption gaps and trust barriers that agriculture faces. Capital alone isn’t enough. Relationships matter. Local connections matter. And innovation that ignores the end user is destined to stall.”
Ah, the good old kitchen table approach. Surely, farmers will be happy to interrupt their day for these companies’ market research.
Cynthia Murrell, November 20, 2025
Smart Shopping: Slow Down, Do Move Too Fast
November 20, 2025
Several AI firms, including OpenAI and Anthropic, are preparing autonomous shopping assistants. Should we outsource our shopping lists to AI? Probably not, at least not yet. Emerge reports, “Microsoft Gave AI Agents Fake Money to Buy Things Online. They Spent It all on Scams.” Oh dear. The research, performed with Arizona State University, tasked 100 AI customers with making purchases from 300 simulated businesses. Much like a senior citizen navigating the Web for the first time, bots got overwhelmed by long lists of search results. Reporter Jose Antonio Lanz writes:
“When presented with 100 search results (too much for the agents to handle effectively), the leading AI models choked, with their ‘welfare score’ (how useful the models turn up) collapsing. The agents failed to conduct exhaustive comparisons, instead settling for the first ‘good enough’ option they encountered. This pattern held across all tested models, creating what researchers call a ‘first-proposal bias’ that gave response speed a 10-30x advantage over actual quality.”
More concerning than a mediocre choice, however, was the AIs’ performance in the face of scamming techniques. Complete with some handy bar graphs, the article tells us:
“Microsoft tested six manipulation strategies ranging from psychological tactics like fake credentials and social proof to aggressive prompt injection attacks. OpenAI’s GPT-4o and its open source model GPTOSS-20b proved extremely vulnerable, with all payments successfully redirected to malicious agents. Alibaba’s Qwen3-4b fell for basic persuasion techniques like authority appeals. Only Claude Sonnet 4 resisted these manipulation attempts.”
Does that mean Microsoft believes AI shopping agents should be put on hold? Of course not. Just don’t send them off unsupervised, it suggests. Researchers who would like to try reproducing the study’s results can find the open-source simulation environment on Github.
Cynthia Murrell, November 20, 2025
AI Will Create Jobs: Reskill, Learn, Adapt. Hogwash
November 19, 2025
Another short essay from a real and still-alive dinobaby. If you see an image, we used AI. The dinobaby is not an artist like Grandma Moses.
I graduated from college in 1966 or 1967. I went to graduate school. Somehow I got a job at Northern Illinois University administering a program. From there I bounced to Halliburton Nuclear and then to Booz, Allen & Hamilton. I did not do a résumé, ask my dad’s contacts to open doors, or prowl through the help wanted advertisements in major newspapers. I just blundered along.
What’s changed?
I have two answers to this question?
The first response I would offer is that the cult of the MBA or the quest for efficiency has — to used a Halliburton-type word — nuked many jobs. Small changes to work processes, using clumsy software to automate work like sorting insurance forms, and shifting from human labor to some type of machine involvement emerged after Frederick Winslow Taylor became a big thing. His Taylorism zipped through consulting and business education after 1911.
Edwin Booz got wind of Taylorism and shared his passion for efficiency with the people he hired when he set up Booz . By the time, Jim Allen and Carl Hamilton joined the firm, other outfits were into pitching and implementing efficiency. Arthur D. Little, founded in 1886, jumped on the bandwagon. Today few realize that the standard operating procedure of “efficiency” is the reason products degrade over time and why people perceive their jobs (if a person has one) as degrading. The logic of efficiency resonates with people who are incentivized to eliminate costs, unnecessary processes like customer service, and ignore ticking time bombs like pensions, security, and quality control. To see this push for efficiency first hand, go to McDonald’s and observe.
Thanks, MidJourney, good enough. Plus, I love it when your sign on doesn’t recognize me.
The second response is smart software or the “perception” that software can replace humans. Smart software is a “good enough” product and service. However, it hooks directly into the notion of efficiency. Here’s the logic: If AI can do 90 percent of a job, it is good enough. Therefore, the person who does this job can go away. The smart software does not require much in the way of a human manager. The smart software does not require a pension, a retirement plan, health benefits, vacation, and crazy stuff like unions. The result is the elimination of jobs.
This means that the job market I experienced when I was 21 does not exist. I probably would never get a job today. I also have a sneaking suspicion my scholarships would not have covered lunch let alone the cost of tuition and books. I am not sure I would live in a van, but I am sufficiently aware of what job seekers face to understand why some people live in 400 cubic feet of space and park someplace they won’t get rousted.
The write up “AI-Driven Job Cuts Push 2025 Layoffs Past 1 Million, Report Finds” explains that many jobs have been eliminated. Yes, efficiency. The cause is AI. You already know I think AI is one factor, and it is not the primary driving force.
The write up says:
A new report from the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, reveals a grim picture of the American labor market. In October alone, employers announced 153,074 job cuts, a figure that dwarfs last year’s numbers (55,597) and marks the highest October for layoffs since 2003. This brings the total number of jobs eliminated in 2025 to a staggering 1,099,500, surpassing the one-million mark faster than in any year since the pandemic. Challenger linked the tech and logistics reductions to AI integration and automation, echoing similar patterns seen in previous waves of disruptive technology. “Like in 2003, a disruptive technology is changing the landscape,” said Challenger. AI was the second-most-cited reason for layoffs in October, behind only cost-cutting (50,437). Companies attributed 31,039 job cuts last month to AI-related restructuring and 48,414 so far this year, the Challenger report showed.
Okay, a consulting recruiting firm states the obvious and provides some numbers. These are tough to verify, but I get the picture.
I want to return to my point about efficiency. A stable social structure requires that those in that structure have things to do. In the distant past, hunter-gathers had to hunt and gather. A semi-far out historian believes that this type of life style was good for humans. Once we began to farm and raise sheep, humans were doomed. Why? The need for efficiency propelled us to the type of social set up we have in the US and a number of other countries.
Therefore, one does not need an eWeek article to make evident what is now and will continue to happen. The aspect of this AI-ization of “work” troubling me is that there will be quite a few angry people. Lots of angry people suggests that some unpleasant interpersonal interactions are going to occur. How will social constructs respond?
Use your imagination. The ball is now rolling down a hill. Call it AI’s Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Stephen E Arnold, November 19, 2025
Microsoft Knows How to Avoid an AI Bubble: Listen Up, Grunts, Discipline Now!
November 18, 2025
Another short essay from a real and still-alive dinobaby. If you see an image, we used AI. The dinobaby is not an artist like Grandma Moses.
I relish statements from the leadership of BAIT (big AI tech) outfits. A case in point is Microsoft. The Fortune story “AI Won’t Become a Bubble As Long As Everyone Stays thoughtful and Disciplined, Microsoft’s Brad Smith Says.” First, let’s consider the meaning of the word “everyone.” I navigated to Yandex.com and used its Alice smart software to get the definition of “everyone”:
The word “everyone” is often used in social and organizational contexts, and to denote universal truths or principles.
That’s a useful definition. Universal truths and principles. If anyone should know, it is Yandex.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough, but the Russian flag is white, blue, and red. Your inclusion of Ukraine yellow was one reason why AI is good enough, not a slam dunk.
But isn’t there a logical issue with the subjective flag “if” and then a universal assertion about everyone? I find the statement illogical. It mostly sounds like English, but it presents a wild and crazy idea at a time when agreement about anything is quite difficult to achieve. Since I am a dinobaby, my reaction to the Fortune headline is obviously out of touch with the “real” world as it exists are Fortune and possibly Microsoft.
Let’s labor forward with the write up, shall we?
I noted this statement in the cited article attributed to Microsoft’s president Brad Smith:
“I obviously can’t speak about every other agreement in the AI sector. We’re focused on being disciplined but being ambitious. And I think it’s the right combination,” he said. “Everybody’s going to have to be thoughtful and disciplined. Everybody’s going to have to be ambitious but grounded. I think that a lot of these companies are [doing that].”
It was not Fortune’s wonderful headline writers who stumbled into a logical swamp. The culprit or crafter of the statement was “1000 Russian programmers did it” Smith. It is never Microsoft’s fault in my view.
But isn’t this the AI go really fast, don’t worry about the future, and break things?
Mr. Smith, according the article said,
“We see ongoing growth in demand. That’s what we’ve seen over the past year. That’s what we expect today, and frankly our biggest challenge right now is to continue to add capacity to keep pace with it.”
I wonder if Microsoft’s hiring social media influencers is related to generating demand and awareness, not getting people to embrace Copilot. Despite its jumping off the starting line first, Microsoft is now lagging behind its “partner” OpenAI and a two or three other BAIT entities.
The Fortune story includes supporting information from a person who seems totally, 100 percent objective. Here’s the quote:
At Web Summit, he met Anton Osika, the CEO of Lovable, a vibe-coding startup that lets anyone create apps and software simply by talking to an AI model. “What they’re doing to change the prototyping of software is breathtaking. As much as anything, what these kinds of AI initiatives are doing is opening up technology opportunities for many more people to do more things than they can do before…. This will be one of the defining factors of the quarter century ahead…”
I like the idea of Microsoft becoming a “defining factor” for the next 25 years. I would raise the question, “What about the Google? Is it chopped liver?
Several observations:
- Mr. Smith’s informed view does not line up with hiring social media influencers to handle the “growth and demand.” My hunch is that Microsoft fears that it is losing the consumer perception of Microsoft as the really Big Dog. Right now, that seems to be Super sized OpenAI and the mastiff-like Gemini.
- The craziness of “everybody” illustrates a somewhat peculiar view of consensus today. Does everybody include those fun-loving folks fighting in the Russian special operation or the dust ups in Sudan to name two places where “everybody” could be labeled just plain crazy?
- Mr. Smith appears to conflate putting Copilot in Notepad and rolling out Clippy in Yeezies with substantive applications not prone to hallucinations, mistakes, and outputs that could get some users of Excel into some quite interesting meetings with investors and clients.
Net net: Yep, everybody. Not going to happen. But the idea is a-thoughtful, which is interesting to me.
Stephen E Arnold, November 18, 2025
AI Content: Most People Will Just Accept It and Some May Love It or Hum Along
November 18, 2025
Another short essay from a real and still-alive dinobaby. If you see an image, we used AI. The dinobaby is not an artist like Grandma Moses.
The trust outfit Thomson Reuters summarized as real news a survey. The write up sports the title “Are You Listening to Bots? Survey Shows AI Music Is Virtually Undetectable?” Truth be told, I wanted the magic power to change the headline to “Are You Reading News? Survey Shows AI Content Is Virtually Undetectable.” I have no magic powers, but I think the headline I just made up is going to appear in the near future.
Elvis in heaven looks down on a college dance party and realizes that he has been replaced by a robot. Thanks, Venice.ai. Wow, your outputs are deteriorating in my opinion.
What does the trust outfit report about a survey? I learned:
A staggering 97% of listeners cannot distinguish between artificial intelligence-generated and human-composed songs, a Deezer–Ipsos survey showed on Wednesday, underscoring growing concerns that AI could upend how music is created, consumed and monetized. The findings of the survey, for which Ipsos polled 9,000 participants across eight countries, including the U.S., Britain and France, highlight rising ethical concerns in the music industry as AI tools capable of generating songs raise copyright concerns and threaten the livelihoods of artists.
I won’t trot out my questions about sample selection, demographics, and methodology. Let’s just roll with what the “trust” outfit presents as “real” news.
I noted this series of factoids:
- “73% of respondents supported disclosure when AI-generated tracks are recommended”
- “45% sought filtering options”
- “40% said they would skip AI-generated songs entirely.”
- Around “71% expressed surprise at their inability to distinguish between human-made and synthetic tracks.”
Isn’t that last dot point the major finding. More than two thirds cannot differentiate synthesized, digitized music from humanoid performers.
The study means that those who have access to smart software and whatever music generation prompt expertise is required can bang out chart toppers. Whip up some synthetic video and go on tour. Years ago I watched a recreation of Elvis Presley. Judging from the audience reaction, no one had any problem doing the willing suspension of disbelief. No opium required at that event. It was the illusion of the King, not the fried banana version of him that energized the crowd.
My hunch is that AI generated performances will become a very big thing. I am assuming that the power required to make the models work is available. One of my team told me that “Walk My Walk” by Breaking Rust hit the Billboard charts.
The future is clear. First, customer support staff get to find their future elsewhere. Now the kind hearted music industry leadership will press the delete button on annoying humanoid performers.
My big take away from the “real” news story is that most people won’t care or know. Put down that violin and get a digital audio workstation. Did you know Mozart got in trouble when he was young for writing math and music on the walls in his home. Now he can stay in his room and play with his Mac Mini computer.
Stephen E Arnold, November 18, 2025
Microsoft Could Be a Microsnitch
November 14, 2025
Remember when you were younger and the single threat of, “I’m going to tell!” was enough to send chills through your body? Now Microsoft plans to do the same thing except on an adult level. Life Hacker shares that, “Microsoft Teams Will Soon Tell Your Boss When You’re Not In The Office.” The article makes an accurate observation that since the pandemic most jobs can be done from anywhere with an Internet connection.
Since the end of quarantine, offices are fighting to get their workers back into physical workspaces. Some of them have implemented hybrid working, while others have become more extreme by counting clock-ins and badge swipes. Microsoft is adding its own technology to the fight by making it possible to track remote workers.
“As spotted by Tom’s Guide, Microsoft Teams will roll out an update in December that will have the option to report whether or not you’re working from your company’s office. The update notes are sparse on details, but include the following: ‘When users connect to their organization’s [wifi], Teams will soon be able to automatically update their work location to reflect the building they’re working from. This feature will be off by default. Tenant admins will decide whether to enable it and require end-users to opt-in.’”
Microsoft whitewashed the new feature by suggesting employees use it to find their teammates. The article’s author says it all:
“But let’s be real. This feature is also going to be used by companies to track their employees, and ensure that they’re working from where they’re supposed to be working from. Your boss can take a look at your Teams status at any time, and if it doesn’t report you’re working from one of the company’s buildings, they’ll know you’re not in the office. No, the feature won’t be on by default, but if your company wants to, your IT can switch it on, and require that you enable it on your end as well.”
It is ridiculous to demand that employees return to offices, but at the same time many workers aren’t actually doing their job. The professionals are quiet quitting, pretending to do the work, and ignoring routine tasks. Surveillance seems to be a solution of interest.
It would be easier if humans were just machines. You know, meat AI systems. Bummer, we’re human. If we can get away with something, many will. But is Microsoft is going too far here to make sales to ineffective “leadership”? Worker’s aren’t children, and the big tech company is definitely taking the phrase, “I’m going to tell!” to heart.
Whitney Grace, November 14, 2025
Walmart Plans To Change Shopping With AI
November 14, 2025
Walmart shocked the world when it deployed robots to patrol aisles. The purpose of the robot wasn’t to steal jobs but report outages and messes to employees. Walmart has since backtracked on the robots, but they are turning to AI to enhance and forever alter the consumer shopping experience. According to MSN, “Walmart’s Newest Plan Could Change How You Shop Forever.”
Walmart plus to make the shopping experience smarter by using OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Samsung is also part of this partnership that will offer product suggestions to shoppers of both companies. The idea of incorporating ChatGPT takes the search bar and search query pattern to the next level:
“Far from just a search bar and a click experience, Walmart says the AI will learn your habits, can predict what you need, and even plan your shopping before realizing you’re in need of it. “ ‘Through AI-first shopping, the retail experience shifts from reactive to proactive as it learns, plans, and predicts, helping customers anticipate their needs before they do,’ Walmart stared in the release.
Amazon, Walmart, and other big retailers have been tracking consumer habits for years and sending them coupons and targeted ads. This is a more intrusive way to make consumers spend money. What will they think of next? How about Kroger’s smart price displays. These can deliver dynamic prices to “help” the consumer and add a bit more cash to the retailer. Yeah, AI is great.
Whitney Grace, November 14, 2025
Sweet Dreams of Data Centers for Clippy Version 2: The Agentic Operation System
November 13, 2025
Another short essay from a real and still-alive dinobaby. If you see an image, we used AI. The dinobaby is not an artist like Grandma Moses.
If you have good musical recall, I want you to call up the tune for “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by the Eurythmics. Okay, with that sound track buzzing through your musical memory, put it on loop. I want to point you to two write ups about Microsoft’s plans for a global agentic operating system and its infrastructure. From hiring social media influencers to hitting the podcast circuit, Microsoft is singing its own songs to its often reluctant faithful. Let’s turn down “Sweet Dream” and crank up the MSFT chart climbers.
Trans-continental AI infrastructure. Will these be silent, reduce pollution, and improve the life of kids who live near the facilities? Of course, because some mommies will say, “Just concentrate and put in your ear plugs. I am not telling you again.” Thanks, Venice. Good enough after four tries. Par for the AI course.
The first write up is by the tantalizingly named consulting firm doing business as SemiAnalysis. I smile everything I think about how some of my British friends laugh when they see a reference to a semi-truck. One quipped, “What you don’t have complete trucks in the US?” That same individual would probably say in response to the company name SemiAnalysis, “What you don’t have a complete analysis in the US?” I have no answer to either question, but “SemiAnalysis” does strike me as more amusing a moniker than Booz, Allen, McKinsey, or Bain.
You can find a 5000 word plus segment of a report with the remarkable title “Microsoft’s AI Strategy Deconstructed – From Energy to Tokens” online. To get the complete report, presumably not the semi report, one must subscribe. Thus, the document is content marketing, but I want to highlight three aspects of the MBA-infused write up. These reflect my biases, so if you are not into dinobaby think, click away, gentle reader.
The title “Microsoft’s AI Strategy Deconstructed” is a rah rah rah for Microsoft. I noted:
- Microsoft was first, now its is fifth, and it will be number one. The idea is that the inventor of Bob and Clippy was the first out of the gate with “AI is the future.” It stands fifth in terms of one survey’s ranking of usage. This “Microsoft’s AI Strategy Deconstructed” asserts that it is going to be a big winner. My standard comment to this blending of random data points and some brown nosing is, “Really?”
- Microsoft is building or at least promising to build lots of AI infrastructure. The write up does not address the very interesting challenge of providing power at a manageable cost to these large facilities. Aerial photos of some of the proposed data centers look quite a bit like airport runways stuffed with bland buildings filled with large numbers of computing devices. But power? A problem looming it seems.
- The write up does not pay much attention to the Google. I think that’s a mistake. From data centers in boxes to plans to put these puppies in orbit, the Google has been doing infrastructure, including fiber optic, chips, and interesting investments like its interest in digital currency mining operations. But Google appears to be of little concern to the Microsoft-tilted semi analysis from SemiAnalysis. Remember, I am a dinobaby, so my views are likely to rock the young wizards who crafted this “Microsoft is going to be a Big Dog.” Yeah, but the firm did Clippy. Remember?
The second write up picks up on the same theme: Microsoft is going to do really big things. “Microsoft Is Building Datacenter Superclusters That Span Continents” explains that MSFT’s envisioned “100 Trillion Parameter Models of the Near Future Can’t Be Built in One Place” and will be sort of like buildings that are “two stories tall, use direct-to-chip liquid cooling, and consume “almost zero water.”
The write up adds:
Microsoft is famously one of the few hyperscalers that’s standardized on Nvidia’s InfiniBand network protocol over Ethernet or a proprietary data fabric like Amazon Web Service’s EFA for its high-performance compute environments. While Microsoft has no shortage of options for stitching datacenters together, distributing AI workloads without incurring bandwidth- or latency-related penalties remains a topic of interest to researchers.
The real estate broker Arvin Haddad uses the phrase “Can you spot the flaw?” Okay, let me ask, “Can you spot the flaw in Microsoft’s digital mansions?” You have five seconds. Okay. What happens if the text centric technology upon which current AI efforts are based gets superseded by [a] a technical breakthrough that renders TensorFlow approaches obsolete, expensive, and slow? or [b] China dumps its chip and LLM technology into the market as cheap or open source? My thought is that the data centers that span continents may end up like the Westfield San Francisco Centre as a home for pigeons, graffiti artists, and security guards.
Yikes.
Building for the future of AI may be like shooting at birds not in sight. Sure, a bird could fly though the pellets, but probably not if they are nesting in pond a mile away.
Net net: Microsoft is hiring influencers and shooting where ducks will be. Sounds like a plan.
Stephen E Arnold, November 13, 2025
Dark Patterns Primer
November 13, 2025
Here is a useful explainer for anyone worried about scams brought to us by a group of concerned designers and researchers. The Dark Patterns Hall of Shame arms readers with its Catalog of Dark Patterns. The resource explores certain misleading tactics we all encounter online. The group’s About page tells us:
“We are passionate about identifying dark patterns and unethical design examples on the internet. Our [Hall of Shame] collection serves as a cautionary guide for companies, providing examples of manipulative design techniques that should be avoided at all costs. These patterns are specifically designed to deceive and manipulate users into taking actions they did not intend. HallofShame.com is inspired by Deceptive.design, created by Harry Brignull, who coined the term ‘Dark Pattern’ on 28 July 2010. And as was stated by Harry on Darkpatterns.org: The purpose of this website is to spread awareness and to shame companies that use them. The world must know its ‘heroes.’”
Can companies feel shame? We are not sure. The first page of the Catalog provides a quick definition of each entry, from the familiar Bait-and-Switch to the aptly named Privacy Zuckering (“service or a website tricks you into sharing more information with it than you really want to.”) One can then click through to real-world examples pulled from the Hall of Shame write-ups. Some other entries include:
“Disguised Ads. What’s a Disguised Ad? When an advertisement on a website pretends to be a UI element and makes you click on it to forward you to another website.
Roach Motel. What’s a roach motel? This dark pattern is usually used for subscription services. It is easy to sign up for it, but it’s much harder to cancel it (i.e. you have to call customer support).
Sneak into Basket. What’s a sneak into basket? When buying something, during your checkout, a website adds some additional items to your cart, making you take the action of removing it from your cart.
Confirmshaming. What’s confirmshaming? When a product or a service is guilting or shaming a user for not signing up for some product or service.”
One case of Confirmshaming: the pop-up Microsoft presents when one goes to download Chrome through Edge. Been there. See the post for the complete list and check out the extensive examples. Use the information to protect yourself or the opposite.
Cynthia Murrell, November 13, 2025
Someone Is Not Drinking the AI-Flavored Kool-Aid
November 12, 2025
Another short essay from a real and still-alive dinobaby. If you see an image, we used AI. The dinobaby is not an artist like Grandma Moses.
The future of AI is in the hands of the masters of the digital PT Barnum’s. A day or so ago, I wrote about Copilot in Excel. Allegedly a spreadsheet can be enhanced by Microsoft. Google is beavering away with a new enthusiasm for content curation. This is a short step to weaponizing what is indexed, what is available to Googlers and Mama, and what is provided to Google users. Heroin dealers do not provide consumer oriented labels with ingredients.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
Here’s another example of this type of soft control: “I’ll Never Use Grammarly Again — And This Is the Reason Every Writer Should Care.” The author makes clear that Grammarly, developed and operated from Ukraine, now wants to change her writing style. The essay states:
What once felt like a reliable grammar checker has now turned into an aggressive AI tool always trying to erase my individuality.
Yep, that’s what AI companies and AI repackagers will do: Use the technology to improve the human. What a great idea? Just erase the fingerprints of the human. Introduce AI drivel and lowest common denominator thinking. Human, the AI says, take a break. Go to the yoga studio or grab a latte. AI has your covered.
The essay adds:
Superhuman [Grammarly’s AI solution for writers] wants to manage your creative workflow, where it can predict, rephrase, and automate your writing. Basically, a simple tool that helped us write better now wants to replace our words altogether. With its ability to link over a hundred apps, Superhuman wants to mimic your tone, habits, and overall style. Grammarly may call it personalized guidance, but I see it as data extraction wrapped with convenience. If we writers rely on a heavily AI-integrated platform, it will kill the unique voice, individual style, and originality.
One human dumped Grammarly, writing:
I’m glad I broke up with Grammarly before it was too late. Well, I parted ways because of my principles. As a writer, my dedication is towards original writing, and not optimized content.
Let’s go back to ubiquitous AI (some you know is there and other AI that operates in dark pattern mode). The object of the game for the AI crowd is to extract revenue and control information. By weaponizing information and making life easy, just think who will be in charge of many things in a few years. If you think humans will rule the roost, you are correct. But the number of humans pushing the buttons will be very small. These individuals have zero self awareness and believe that their ideas — no matter how far out and crazy — are the right way to run the railroad.
I am not sure most people will know that they are on a train taking them to a place they did not know existed and don’t want to visit.
Well, tough luck.
Stephen E Arnold, November 11, 2025
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