The Same People Will Be Forgotten Again
And this time some of it will be called ethics.
I sat in a meeting this week and watched a room talk itself out of the future. Good people — carers, builders. One by one the objections came, each wearing the costume of principle, and underneath every costume was the same body: I don’t know this yet, and not-knowing frightens me, so I will call my fear a value.
The people left behind by the internet weren’t left behind because they took a brave stand. They couldn’t tell a fad from a foundation, and by the time they could, the gap had closed behind them like water. It’s happening again — and this time the ones most at risk are the ones who serve the forgotten.
I don’t know this yet, and not-knowing frightens me — so I will call my fear a value.
“I’ve seen the damage AI is doing.” True. But seeing the damage is not the same as understanding the tool. A hammer built half the slums in the world and half the cathedrals. The question was never whether the tool can harm. It’s who’s in the room when it’s aimed. When the careful people leave, the room doesn’t empty — it fills with whoever’s left.
And before you say I only wrote this with a machine: the seeing came first. The years came first. I used the tool the way I’d use a sharper pen — to make the argument land, not to have it for me. How I wrote it doesn’t change that I saw it.