Currently Reading: The Present Age by Soren Kierkegaard 📚

Inspired by Matthew Crawford’s recent bit on AI and wedding speeches

What does it mean to outsource a wedding speech to AI? In a very real sense, says Crawford, it means to not show up to the wedding.

And this is, of course, what AI means for most of the things we so happily and thoughtlessly apply it to: It means to not show up for the life you were made to live.

It’s tempting to label the excerpts from Kierkegaard that Crawford uses as nothing short of prescient, but they are probably more accurately described as deeply insightful but oh-so-human.

As Walter Kaufmann puts it, in what is probably the most interesting preface ever written:

Read for the flavour, chew the phrases, enjoy the humour, feel the offence when you are attacked, don’t ignore the author’s blunders, but don’t fail to look for your own shortcomings as well: then the book will make you a better man than you were before. But if you should find it too strenuous to read for the joy and pain of an encounter with a human being who, exasperated with himself, his age, and you, does not—let’s face it—like you, then leave the book alone and do not look for marvellous anticipations!

I shall do my best.