Welcome to Being Here

How to Be Radically Human in the Age of AI

A little background for my first post here:

I’ve been working in the tech industry since I graduated college with a design degree in 2017. I didn’t really set out to be a tech girly when I started my career — I always saw myself as a creative and loved designing things that could exist in the physical world, not just the digital one. But getting a full-time job is hard enough so I wasn’t picky with my first one, and then the train just kept rolling down the track from there.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve truly loved a lot of what I’ve done over the years and I have no regrets. But being immersed in the tech world in the age of AI has also allowed me a front row seat to the future we’re building… and a lot of the time I don’t like what I see in the crystal ball.

When I’m faced with these fears and realities (which I’ll break down in future posts) the designer in me wants to figure out how to design a better alternative. A better future, a better world, but more realistically a better lifestyle for myself.

It feels like the powers that be aren’t acting with intention in this current “design.” Or more accurately, their intention isn’t aligned with my own (or yours most likely). The intention, the thing being designed for, is money. Growing businesses. Rich CEOs. Winning the race.

There’s so much that could be done better that part of me wants to dedicate the rest of my career to it. To the ethical use of technology, designing for a better digital world, helping shape new policies, etc. The other part of me feels called to spend my time and energy focusing on my own life — creating a world within myself and my immediate family that feels more human, even if doing that is somehow radical in 2025. So this Substack is devoted to the exploration of both those parts of myself.

More than the average person, I have my finger on the pulse when it comes to the extremely fast-moving world of AI. But unlike the average techie, I have a healthy dose of skepticism about it all. I’m not skeptical about it changing the world, I’m skeptical about whether that change will be for the better. So I want to share my thoughts on how these big changes are going to affect us as normal people living in the world. But at the same time I want to balance the fear with inspiration for living a more human experience alongside this reality.

What I write are reminders to myself: I am in control of a lot of the aspects of my life, even though sometimes it might not feel like it. I have the freedom to delete social media, to drop everything and go collect rocks for an hour, to show up at a friend’s house unannounced with homemade cookies, to spend my finite time and attention on things I actually care about. To refuse to participate in norms I don’t believe in, or follow the crowd down a road I don’t like the looks of. To use my skills and perspective to create a better world.

I hope you’ll subscribe and join me on this journey.

Thanks for being here,

Maddy