Faceless does not mean AI

The purpose of this article is only to tell you I’m not a robot, but it’s maybe made me feel worse?

I write this on behalf of my secretive account, to let you know I am not AI and do not use AI for so much as prompts or punch-ups for articles. If anything, my problem is having rather too many ideas and a verbose streak, rather than the other way around, but I can quite accept that you might take a look at an faceless blog and think ‘AI user’ where one might have once thought ‘troll’.

AI can create a whole-ass person if you direct it to. Based on not-even-illegally-stolen pictures (like the ones I deleted off my socials) it can create a visual identity, and create a personality for them that would likely be more successful than I am. [1] I could feed my own texts and essays into an LLM and have it churn out anything from prompts to fully-fledged longform prose to post. I could keep my own thoughts private whilst having them regurgitated beyond recognition for public consumption by a robot, all behind the face of a baddie who isn’t quite real [2] and enough people wouldn’t notice or care that I could build a career.[3] Maalvika and Caroline Calloway have not suffered from controversy,[4] and there are thousands more people engaging in their same practices who have evaded detection by being smaller fry.

I love to post content online. I will happily share what I think, what I love, and how I work… but I will not share myself. I have several reasons for this – primarily that I work in a school and would like the freedom to say what I think without tethering those ideas to my pedagogical practice (ie, neither being accused of bringing politics and controversy into my teaching nor potentially influencing curious children who google me), but significantly also because as I have grown up I have realised the power privacy and distance has for my mental health, thought process, and enjoyment of my private life. Beyond that, I am incredibly paranoid about my research interests being stolen or used against me in a world of AI and publish-or-perish; I do not tie my online identity to my research as I do not want my thought patterns either mimicked or discredited until I have the time and energy to defend them. That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t have thoughts that don’t fit anywhere else, and that I don’t love this challenge of presenting a unique thought weekly. I am a columnist, and I don’t need nepotism, an Oxbridge degree, or a salary from an old-world media outlet to justify that. I will not deny that the person behind this account this is me, should you clock it (and indeed there are many people I know IRL floating around on my socials) but the separation of my identity from my posts has been valuable on a metaphysical level.

Late Romantic is a brand, a project I make. Like the difference between Chappell Roan and Kayleigh Amstutz, it can be both true that I embody Late Romantic and am not entirely it. I use the pieces that I write to unknot ideas and the fiction is a way of presenting my art that encourages me to write and share. Late Romantic is a company: I want it to stand for what I care about, but I also want it to stand beyond that, an Ozymandias edifice untainted by the ‘real’ man behind it and able to amplify voices beyond my own. [5] I want to walk through the world freely observing, like Philip Larkin, able to engage with and comment upon the life I live without fear that I am incriminating myself and others. I write what might be called ‘personal essays’, yes, but with an impersonal distance that I hope speaks to a respect for the humanity of others in my life and allows for an integrity of the Idea beyond personal answers.

Of course, AI is not the only thing I worry about being misconstrued for: ‘anime icons’ are potential psy-ops acting disingenuously in a culture war behind the anonymity of profiles that are not associated with a person. I agree that the writer is an inherently political animal, that so much as living in times like these requires that we understand the worldview our art proclaims. [6] I agree that my politics and art are intertwined as my politics are with my religion, my fashion, and my relationships, but I am careful not to, in my online life, become a touchpaper in a culture war. My online footprint doesn’t tell you my phobias, my complex thoughts about aspects of morality, or my experiences – not if I think they can be used against me or create something which may menace others. These are still written, but they are locked behind passwords or remain at conferences where the hill I am prepared to die on can be attacked only in good faith, where my worldview can be changed by challenge not bombardment, and where my words of critique are not weaponised against an ally I may not fully agree with. We live in a world where simple ideas I would never have thought to be controversial, like feminism and democracy, are under threat, and I’d like to state that I am not out here writing deliberately insane takes as some kind of trojan horse – any insanity you might spot is my own truly held belief.[7]

Ultimately, I don’t think I’m making the wrong choice to be anonymous on the internet: my name is my own, and I am free to use it how I will; I am also aware, however, that I am stymying my success by refusing mainstream engagement with platforms as they are intended to be used.[8] Perhaps success is something we all need to redefine for ourselves: I can’t do as much as a robot, and my reach will be shorter, but my impact can potentially be greater on the people I do reach. My personhood is expanded by the things I write because of the thought process that goes into making each piece, and by publishing even anonymously I can assert myself on the world, focussed on my thoughts and not how it impacts my ‘personal brand’, because Late Romantic is a beast outside of myself.

[1] great now I don’t even just have to worry about cats on instagram with more success than I’ll ever have, the robots (neutral) and the sweaty grifters behind them (the real enemy) are going to outpace me in every possible metric.

[2] Hatsune Miku is as real as God in the public consciousness.

[3] especially since I could use pictures of my own hands if challenged – behind every AI is, indeed, a human milking at the content farm.

[4] 34k and 663k followers respectively

[5] less ‘king of kings’ than ‘mid-30s white lady’, but still: look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Imagine Citizen Kane but from the perspective of Susan.

[6] all times are times like these as far as individual engagement in politics goes – can you think of a time when people’s participation wasn’t required to create a zeitgeist and a leadership structure?

[7] but also, are any of my takes insane?? I might be hard left but I’m also very mild mannered.

[8] I’m not as hot as I once was, but I still feel an ick about finding success based on a perceived style, look, way of speaking gently, or trick of thought outside of my own curated presentation.

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On This Topic:

• Lindsay Ellis talking about cancellation
• Phillip Larkin complained endlessly about work but it made him a better person and artist (too real)
• I haven’t just watched The Prisoner, I’ve watched it in three different episode orders to try and get more out of it and attended the Six Of One annual convention twice. I cannot recommend it enough.

To-Do:

• Prep for supervision this week (am behind oh god I have the fear again)
• Mark 10 papers before Thursday
• Reconnect with all the people I am supposed to be taking trips to, make that happen [work]

Today’s Culture:

• I am beginning to refine my stationery aesthetic, and I take some pride in that.
• Decaf cappuccino with hazelnut syrup and cinnamon on top – I’m drinking one as I write this. Is it THE coffee? Idk but it’s A coffee. And the barista gave me fuck tonnes of cinnamon, which can never be bad.
• I’m making my own headed paper as an attempt to use up the large amounts of stationery I have acquired in an enjoyable way. All it’s taken is a stamp from Etsy, and I never need to pay the high prices of cute letter sets again.