There’s an argument to be made that we should all be creating for AI. Doing so, it’s been posited, is the best way to ensure our work, our thoughts, our history and experiences are well documented by the archivists of the future.

There’s an argument to be made that we should all be creating for social media, optimizing our output for the trends these platforms’ algos prefer (currently), and which they are thus more likely to place in front of more eyeballs (and ears).

This isn’t new: if we’re not creating for the AIs or socials, we’re writing for the search engines, critics, or other middleman between maker and consumer. It’s also not novel for such forces to nudge us in specific directions (those favoring their priorities), and some of these forces will make a good case for that nudging, others will fail to, and still others will nudge us without our even realizing they’re doing so.

I could choose to be nudged, then, and I might enjoy some real, tangible benefits for making that choice.

But is that how I want to live my life? Spending grand sums of my finite thoughts, hours, and energy to churn out stuff I know is good for the machines (or some sentient gatekeeper), rather than the work I actually want to be sharing with other humans?

There’s a balance here, of course. Just as there’s a balance between doing the work I want to be doing (in its purest, most Platonic possible form) and doing the work I want to be doing in such a way that I’m able to make a living from it.

I have bills, I have to pay the rent, I have to eat. We all have external variables shaping, to greater and lesser degrees, that which we produce. We have some choice about some of the specifics, but it’s arguably impossible to create something that’s just ours, free from any outside influence.

I think it’s possible to prioritize our own voices and aspirations over those of life’s many nudgers, but I also know that the more we opt for that kind of purity, the fewer distribution and curatorial avenues will be available to us; which will be a more than acceptable trade-off for some, but unworkable for most.

The real challenge, then, is finding the exact right formula: a balance between purity and access, so that the costs paid and points conceded allow us, over time, to pay and concede less while making something that’s increasingly our own.

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