This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “magnify,” was the word choice from Barbara. Check out her blog here!

The bots are at it again, scraping this website and artificially boosting my visitor and view numbers in order to feed AI.

I used to get an emotional lift out of my increased stats on WordPress. They made me want to do more, work harder; they provided incentive to keep writing.

Now?

The bots, to me, magnify the effect AI is having on our humanity.

Why bother trying when there are machines that can surpass all our efforts? Write books in the blink of an eye, draw anything we can come up with on a whim without ever putting pen to paper?

We are important, damn it.

Our efforts are important, and so are our talents. The details we envision when we create CAN NOT BE INCLUDED when a simple prompt is typed into a machine.

We must never lose our appreciation for what we create. For what we imagine. For what our lifetimes of experience supply to our work and make it human.

This soapbox-elevated post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again to Barbara for the prompt!