souptember

Souptember is over and I entered October feeling as if the machines have won. I woke up to news that OpenAI released Sora 2 with a trailer and then the NYT's Ethicist basically made an argument permitting screenwriters to use AI for more than research, marketing, and outlining, saying that there are no ethical qualms about using it to write dialogue and scenes. For those keeping score, the things I have worked for most of my life at getting really good at can be achieved quickly and simply by pretty much everyone. I have more feelings and opinions on all this, but I'll keep them to myself for now. The sky isn't falling, per se, but things are happening.

But let's not talk about what the future might hold, let's look back to Souptember (a term I pushed pretty hard last month in the hopes that it becomes a thing by next September).

Creativity can take many forms. Thinking of what soups to make, eat, and freeze; working with my hands, with tools, and with natural elements; combining, mixing, altering: cooking checked all the boxes for being creative. We collected ingredients from multiple places – a farm in Maine, farms in Western Pennsylvania, the grocery store, a farmers' market, our own herb garden: to name a few – and as we used them I thought of these places, these outings, and the people we encountered at each. At day's end we were left with quarts of soup – and loads of dishes (which is where I feel that I helped the most).

A simple exercise of dwelling on how many people and places were involved with bringing this bounty together highlighted that we are all connected and that we literally ingest what the earth provides and humans cultivate. We run on the effort of others.

I recently overheard a weightlifter at my gym discussing how annoying weekly meal prep is. He considers food to be fuel – counting calories and grams of protein, etc. – and he loathes spending the time and money needed to make these meals. I think it is easy to get caught up in the fact that cooking takes time and money, and eating the meal can seem to go by so quick – especially when done so in front of a television or computer. I don't disagree with the weightlifter, but there's a difference between thinking of food as a need versus a want. Yes, we need food. (There are too many examples right now of people who don't have access to this simple human need.) But, we can be intentional with this need by thinking of it as a want at times.

Souptember was our little way of thinking a bit more about the food we eat, where it comes from, and what we choose to do with it. And, I'm already mulling over what next Souptember may hold. It felt like making soup was one way to beat the machines. Because, truthfully, they're imperfect, even though they're fast. This popped up on my tv the other day, and I couldn't help but take note of it:

Typos are creeping up in places I hadn't seen them before. Things are getting worse as I notice more and more slippage. And I found myself once again thinking of the term coined by Cory Doctorow a few years back:

The same will happen with AI one day. We're only in stage 1 of the enshittification of it, which is the stage where users benefit the most and platforms gain millions of users before changing prices, adding ads, or cutting quality – think early Netflix streaming or young Twitter to how they both are now.

So I guess my recommendation for this Thursday is to cook something out of the ordinary, something you like, and to approach the effort like you would your creative practice and enjoy how what you're doing, what you're experiencing, can't be replaced by a machine.

indoor animal is curated by a human: Tim Papciak. On Mondays, he shares one link to one music video to help spark creativity in himself and in other creative types. On Thursdays, he recommends a book, movie, show, art piece, or link to some dusty corner of the internet that he believes either 1.) adds to the human experience, or 2.) serves as a coping mechanism in the year 2025. Note: this is not, and never will be, self-help content.