My brother’s 50th High School Class Reunion was this past weekend and he and his wife attended and stopped by “grandmother’s house.” The years have taken a toll.

“High tech/high touch” was a phrase popularized by futurist John Naisbitt in his 1982 bestseller Megatrends, at the dawn of the personal-computer era. His idea was not that society had to choose between technology and humanity. Rather, the more technology entered everyday life, the more people would seek a compensating dose of direct human connection, trust, creativity, care, and meaning.

“High tech” meant computers, telecommunications, automation, data systems, and the emerging information economy. “High touch” meant the things machines could not fully provide: personal attention, face-to-face presence, craftsmanship, conversation, local community, and a sense that another human being was genuinely responsible and engaged.

The phrase reflected its moment. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, computers were still associated with large institutions, bureaucracy, automation, and fears about job loss. At the same time, the culture was reacting against impersonality: there was renewed interest in authenticity, small-scale communities, therapy, spirituality, and “human-scale” living. Naisbitt gave that tension a memorable name.

It feels especially relevant now. The Internet, smartphones, and AI make communication, publishing, searching, and producing information extraordinarily easy. Yet they may also increase the value of a distinctive human voice, careful judgment, genuine attention, and sustained relationships.

I think I’m experiencing some tech fatigue, if that’s a thing. Lord knows I love me some technology (new iPhone and Apple Watch!) but I find myself looking for more “high touch” of late. This feeling has been simmering for a while but bubbled up recently when a friend of mine took his most recent run at convincing me I needed a FSD (full self-driving) vehicle. Specifically, a Tesla. He simply can’t understand why I –or anyone– wouldn’t want such a vehicle.

Sure, part of it –for me– is a reluctance to put one more dollar in Elon Musk’s bulging pockets. But the answer is: I like driving. I liked driving that old Land Rover, I like driving my  79-year-old Jeep, and I like driving Minty Fresh, my beloved old pickup truck. The Rover has a new home and the pickup and the Jeep don’t get as much exercise as they did before I got behind the wheel of the Bronco.

Some of my best memories are driving-related. That 2 a.m. trip to New Orleans with a couple of college buddies; the cross-country adventure with Charlie; my mom teaching me how to use a manual transmission; circling the local teen hangouts while listening to WLS on a tinny AM radio. And so many more. I have a hunch today’s teenage driver will be quietly monitored by Tesla and mom and dad. Can they possibly experience the sense of newfound freedom we had in 1964? Doubtful.

The idea of sitting in a Tesla (or any FSD vehicle) while cruising along a jam-packed I-70 has no appeal for me. Even if it’s as safe or safer than driving myself, it would be bore-ing. As for the argument that Tesla and its ilk are better for “the planet,” okay, sure, no argument. But I couldn’t save the whales, either.

Will I change my tune when I can no longer operate a vehicle? Maybe. But when I’m too feeble to safely operate a vehicle, what will I be capable of when I reach my destination?

don’t invent content. Document your work.

AI can help me create content. It cannot give me 42 years of experiences from which to draw.

The most compelling content generally comes from experience, not imagination.

create a digital record of your expertise.

For me, this is the money-quote:

And now, with artificial intelligence able to search, organize and repurpose that body of work, those years of accumulated knowledge become even more valuable.

If you’ve been following along, you’ve seen ever-more-frequent examples of this.

Thanks to Travis for the pointer.

I asked Claude for some good names: “What would be some good names for a daily one minute video podcast chronicling the adventures of a middle age hipster who pulls up stakes and moves to LA?”

Some ideas, ranging from wry to punchy:

Self-aware/ironic:

• Sixty Seconds of Reinvention
• Midlife, Crisis Optional
• The Relocation
• Uprooted
• New City, Same Guy

LA-flavored:

• West of Everything
• Palm Trees, No Plan
• Traffic & Transcendence
• The 405 Diaries
• Sunset & Second Acts

Hipster-leaning:

• Cold Brew Crisis
• The Vinyl Relocation
• Artisanal Adulthood
• One Minute, One Life Reboot

Minimal/punchy (good for a daily short-form format):

• Daily Reroute
• The Minute Move
• LA in 60
• Stakes Pulled

If you want, tell me the tone you’re going for (deadpan comedy vs. earnest documentary vs. absurdist) and I can narrow these down or riff further.

[I suggested we shoot for “droll”]

Droll suggestions — dry, understated, the joke in the deadpan delivery rather than the wording:

• Sixty Seconds of Reinvention — mundane phrasing for a big life upheaval, that’s the joke
• New City, Same Guy — the punchline is in the shrug
• The Relocation — flat, bureaucratic-sounding title for a personal odyssey
• Traffic & Transcendence — deadpan pairing of the sacred and the sublime with LA gridlock
• Uprooted — plays it straight, lets the visuals carry the humor
• One Minute, One Life Reboot — self-important framing undercut by the format
• Cold Brew Crisis — treats a latte order with the gravity of an actual crisis
• Stakes Pulled — terse, almost military-sounding for a guy moving to chase vibes

(Claude’s) favorite for droll specifically: The Relocation or New City, Same Guy — both let the deadpan do the work without reaching for a joke.

In the ensuing years I settled on Perplexity as my AI of choice (and the only one I pay for: $200/yr) and have saved 28 threads to date:

• Bruce Sterling quote on knowledge and civilization.pdf
• Blog posts “Learfield”.pdf
• Blog tag clouds graphis.pdf
• Snapshots & Fragments Overview.pdf
• Early blogging tools.pdf
• Blog Profiles.pdf
• Prior to 2016 I was an avid ready of Scott Adams’.pdf
• Blog – RELIGION .pdf
• BookBuddy Library Analysis.pdf
• Perplexity analysis of new reading prescription.pdf
• Perplexity on anxiety – 1-4.pdf
• Did Social Media Kill Graffiti?.pdf
• Nonduality/ How my view evolved.pdf
• What I mean when I say “nondual”.pdf
• Noticing What It Feels Like to Notice.rtf
• The Philosophy of Alan Watts.pdf
• Understanding Panpsychism.pdf
• Digital Minimalism & Attention.pdf
• History of Early Computing.pdf
• The Illusion of the Self.pdf
• Meditation and the Brain.pdf
• AI and the Future of Writing.pdf
• Exploring the Bootheel.pdf
• Photography as Time Travel.pdf
• The Evolution of the Web.pdf
• Reflections on Aging.pdf

I figured out early on that nobody would ever read these but I was intrigued by the notion some future AI might find them and view them as early examples of how humans interacted with AIs. I share the list above as a pretty summary of how I use these AI platforms (services?).

PS: I’m a compulsive saver. Here’s a list of miscellaneous quotes from books, articles, etc. All or most of which should be included here at smays.com

With the arrival of the news and improved Siri AI, that has started to pay off. It’s early days but I’m impressed by what I’ve seen so far. Exhibit A: my Calendar app.

I spent hours entering every event (of any importance) in my Day-Timer’s to the Calendar app on my MacBook (The Great Calendar Project). Even attaching relevant PDFs when I had them. Don’t ask me why. Probably the same reason I’ve maintained this blog for 25 years. Siri AI now gives me a handy (fun?) new way to tap into this archive.

Pretty sure this is not what the Apple programmers had in mind as they worked on Siri AI. Most folks just want to know what’s coming up.

In the coming days and weeks I look forward to exploring what Siri AI can do with all of the data I have (obsessively) collected in various apps.

It replaces most Google searches, most ChatGPT or Claude interactions, and cumulative hours of fumbling and searching and dragging and copying and finding and tapping and pasting. […] You can ChatGPT your own life […] The hardest part will be getting out of the habit of opening apps, and remembering that you have Siri.

It’s tempting to tell those around you, “Wow! Did you know Siri can…” but I’m going to resist that temptation. Here’s the thing… Android users (who all secretly suffer from Apple envy) will insist their phones have done xyz since the early 70s. The anti-AI crowd simply doesn’t want to hear about… anything AI related. So I’ll try to limit myself to sharing WHOA! moments here.

But if you’re among the 2.5 billion Apple customers, you probably don’t care (about Android). People just don’t switch platforms—from iPhone to Android or vice versa.

I think Mr. Pogue might be right about Siri AI changing how we use our phones. I’ve already found myself picking up the phone less often. I can simply tell Siri to do such and such or ask it a question and it does it. Again, from Mr. Pogue:

An overwhelming side effect of AI Siri is that you don’t open apps anymore. You just ask and then read (or listen to) the answer. As a result, some app companies might not want to play ball. They want you to open their apps, so they can show you ads. That may be why the Gmail app, for example, isn’t Siri-compatible.

A few Siri AI baby steps: