Zero Hashes

The world was sticky and overcast, a little girl ambled down a pathway to a freshly scooped earth cradle, her mother shadowing her every move. Friends around stood still as cemetery stones, their heads tilted, expressing silent condolences for her loss. As she knelt at the small grave, her Tamagotchi made its final journey from her hands into its new earthly abode, a parting scene flooded with the salty tracks of her tears. Symbolically, a handful of dirt cascaded onto the gadget, sealing it in a backyard tomb, perhaps to become future power for an advanced society.

Every time my wife recounts her childhood digital pet's burial, that scene plays on my head. A glimpse into the wild innocence of the nineties. Those were days where pixelated dinosaurs roamed the earth, and the birth of consumer tech as a peculiar kind of enchantment, joyous and odd, but also murky. In those days, becoming a techno-wizard was my modest ambition, and the act of getting to know someone rarely involved a search engine.

From there, everything started to move at hyper-speed. Our evenings were often spent muzzling dial-up modems with pillows, so the family could sleep while we masqueraded on IRC, or spend an eternity downloading a single MP3 file from Kazaa. Down the line, we surrendered our social identities and credit card numbers to the web's gaping maw, seeking a remedy for an existential malaise that was ever on the rise. The magic of it all, right? Jobs as a modern Gandalf? Or was he more like Saruman? Eh? Ok. It leads me to ponder on what magical realm my daughter and her generation will preside over. This business of assigning labels to generations is chaotic, that much is clear. It seems we've sprinted through more generational markers in the last 20 years than I have fingers on one hand. It's a bit of a shambles, honestly. Someone should fix it.

However, it's a different question that tugs at my curiosity more: in a world where our future wizards are shrouding themselves in inscrutable black boxes, what does that mean for us, the humble onlookers? These fledgling conjurors, these chanters of digital incantations, they're on the cusp of embedding themselves into the fabric of our existence, and this time we have our eyes on the target, squinting. The landscape is poised to shift, with monoliths toppling, death tolls rising, and people getting screwed once again. For us, the wannabe-magicals, where will we be amidst this? If we seek connection, there'll be a simulation for that. If we wish to create art, there'll be an algorithm for that. And if we're after answers, we'll find no shortage of programmed responses. There's an anthem humming in the background of it all, hinting at a potent future lying dormant in our wake. Yet, the catch is, these aren't true wizards, they're proficient scholars dressed in mimicry.

There's a certain smug satisfaction we take in heralding the free-flow of information, in crafting a cyber realm where piracy is commonplace. We've already had our fingers burned once by entrusting corporations rather than communities. Now, we're witnessing the same tale unfold once more, starkly unhidden, unblinkingly observed. Yet, the whirlwind speed of it all is dizzying to track. A forecast is evident: we're en route to becoming serfs to gourmet autocomplete machines. It promises to be a harsh landing. Buckle up.

However, and this is my two cents, combating this isn't about staging a coup or forsaking your carnivorous habits, you can still use your chat GPT, it’s a good assistant. This is more about hitting pause, observing the chaos, and stubbornly steering back towards the warm shores of human engagement. Dive into a community, let your voice echo, and dare to speak your truth. Contribute, aid, invent, bring joy, become a part of something larger. These are the actions that mark us as the pixel-dappled dinosaurs of our epoch. I assure you, from a snake oil salesman to another, such a path offers a contented end. Well, at least there will still be art.