The Worst Thing About AI Is That People CAN'T SHUT UP ABOUT IT

A plea from WIRED's top boss: Say less.

- BY KATIE DRUMMOND

I TRIED TO GET OUT OF THIS assignment so many times, in so many different ways.

Not every package needs an editor’s letter, I told them. I was very busy recording a new podcast, getting ready to speak at a tech conference, eating and sleeping, parenting, doodling, revising my to-do list, retying my shoelaces. I was doing my best, I tried to convey to my editor. To be fair, my method of communication was subtle; I simply stopped responding to his emails, imagining that I could exist on a spectral plane where AI wasn’t being shoved down my throat every minute of every day.

Like so many men before him, he wasn’t getting it. “Don’t think of it as an editor’s letter,” he wrote. “Think of it as a short article for the AI package! I know you aren’t interested in WIRED having an AI manifesto.”