In my work with the… I’ve consistently advocated for a moderate, balanced approach to AI.
-Random Prof.
If the rise of social media (and now agentic AI) has proven anything in the last decade it’s that “advocating” has less value then ever. The time of being the loudest soapbox in a square has succumbed to the insentient noise of millions of bullhorns sat atop towering minarets. Where the vile competes on a level playing field with the lofty, and thoughtful is drowned out by the salacious.
The tools have become too good. The intellectual institutions and social norms have been removed as the middlemen of modern communication. Nobody cares for advocates; they have been replaced by influencers. Nobody cares for critics; there are alternate opinions everywhere. Nobody cares about pundits; unless they are an influencer with a shared opinion.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt
So what is left? How do we cause the change we want to see in the world? We must create it ourselves. We must make the things we want to see, and build the world as we want it to be. Answers are often simple, but seldom easy. Creation has ALWAYS been harder than destruction and the iconoclast seldom has the fortitude for the repair. Building something valuable takes failure, perseverance, and persistence. Failure because most ideas are wrong and must be iterated through the furnace of experience. Perseverance to continue through the failure. Persistence because we might not see the fruit of our results for a long long time.
The painter, with each brush stroke, gives more to the world than any proponent. The founder generates more change than the protester. The parent determines the future more than the professor. A conversation changes more hearts than any critique.
Advocate, if you want to feel like you are contributing; but now, more than ever, change comes from those that do. </irony>