Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer
This piece reflects on Wendell Berry’s 1980s essay regarding his refusal to use a computer, drawing parallels to modern concerns about AI-generated content. The author argues that human-made work possesses a 'soul' and connection that autonomous AI processes lack.
The text on the computer screen, and the computer printout too, has a sterile, untouched, factory made look, like that of a plastic whistle or a new car. The body does not do work like that. The body characterizes everything it touches. What it makes it traces over with the marks of its pulses and breathings, its excitements, hesitations, flaws, and mistakes. On its good work, it leaves the marks of skill, care, and love persisting through hesitations, flaws, and mistakes. And to those of us who love and honor the life of the body in this world, these marks are precious things, necessities of life.
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