Attention.

Kurt has been on top of the news related to artificial intelligence (AI), the latest being the incessant tug-of-war between efficiency and drudgery.

Some keys from the article ...

• Overall, AI will make working easier, but it won’t make one happy. In the future, people will be slaves to AI, and no longer be owners of any work.
• I plan to use AI to build a more efficient and effective educational environment in which both teachers and students thrive. (blah, blah, blah
• The future belongs not to those who can generate content but to those who can skillfully use it.
• When joined with human talent, AI boosts productivity, enables workers to focus on high-value tasks, and strengthens adaptability within businesses. This strategic pairing drives innovation and fosters sustainable growth. The choice is clear: AI must empower, not replace.

Excellence in any craft is partially derived from transforming drudgery into an individual expression (think the creativity in the grotesques found in ancient cathedrals and castles).  Offering attitudes, skills, and performances that are indispensable in the workplace requires years of maturation, but make no mistake, this is is what makes not only a career, but life and learning, worthwhile.  Socrates said it.  Van Gogh said it. Rilke said it. The authenticity of human expression that is compromised through artificial shortcuts isn't sustainable unless the hivemind that feeds it becomes its host.  This is where AI becomes like a gateway drug to kids.  Without an appreciation for the grand and glorious gifts of failure, they see no process (see YouTube DIY clips), just the relative ease of success, and the tool becomes a tragic hamster wheel.  On nearly a daily basis, I'm rejuvenated by the skepticism I see kids showing toward AI.  They clearly understand and resent it's hallmark delusiveness.

Twenty five years ago, I read an essay by French Laundry owner and Executive Chef, Thomas Keller about the nobility inherent in what some may call "drudgery"...

PLEASURE and PERFECTION

When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy. That’s what cooking is all about.

But to give pleasure, you have to take pleasure yourself. For me, it’s the satisfaction of cooking every day: tourneing a carrot, or cutting salmon, or portioning foie gras – the mechanical jobs I do daily, year after year. This is the great challenge: to maintain passion for the everyday routine and the endlessly repeated act, to derive deep satisfaction from the mundane.

Say, for instance, you intend to make a barigoule, a stew of artichoke hearts, braised with carrots and onions, fresh herbs, oil and wine. You may look at your artichokes and think, “Look at all those artichokes I’ve got to cut and clean.” But turning them – pulling off the leaves, trimming their stems, scooping out the chokes, pulling your knife around its edge – that is cooking. It is one of my favorite things to do.

Another source of pleasure in cooking is respect for the food. To undercook a lobster and serve it to a customer, and have him send it back, is not only a waste of the lobster and all those involved in its life, it’s a waste of the potential of pleasing that customer. Respect for food is a respect for life, for who we are and what we do. 

When you’ve pulled your pot from the oven to regard your braise, to really see it, to smell it, you’ve connected yourself to generations and generations of people who have done the same thing for hundreds of years, in exactly the same way. Cooking is not about convenience and it’s not about shortcuts. Cooking is about wanting to take time to do something that is priceless. Our hunger for the twenty-minute gourmet meal, for one-pot ease and pre-washed, pre-cut ingredients has severed our lifeline to the satisfactions of cooking. Take your time. Take a long time. Move slowly and deliberately and with great attention.

A recipe has no soul. You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe. I can tell you the mechanics – how to make a custard, for instance. But you won’t have a perfect one if you merely follow my instructions. If you don’t feel it, it’s not a perfect custard, no matter how well you’ve executed the mechanics. On the other hand, if it’s not literally a perfect custard, but you have not maintained a great feeling for it, then you’ve created a recipe perfectly because there was no passion behind what you did.

The "recipe" is AI, which has no soul.  Marvelous opportunities lie ahead if we keep our soul intact. 

What will happen to us when, finally, we have no more problems to solve, when we are "free" from stress and drudgery? 

Take the rowboat.