---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Amadeus Cameron <evanamadeuscameron@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 9:59 AM
Subject: [TOKEN-good-boy] watching humans talk about AI
To: <penpal@byamadeus.com>

Hello, 

I’ve been to 3-4 AI-related talks over the last couple of months as I get more involved with the technology community in NYC. The first fascinating element is that tech is a cultural bubble (technical field, infrastructure, attracts a certain type of person), but yet there is diversity of thought and background. These talks and events have shown me people who are genuinely calling for unions against corporations, or a more “get your bag and get out” mindset; people ask for democratic approaches to technology, while using the proprietary products day-to-day. What an interesting place this is.

However, generally, every talk goes like this…

Speaker is introduced, they’ve been working with AI just about as long as we have. Everyone is experiencing this real-time.

“LLM is not really the only type of AI”

Anecdote about how their work is mostly AI generated right now… lots of em-dashes, bullet lists, perfect parallels.

Eventually, without fail, it devolves into fundamental questions about the human condition (or something like that). Instead of discussing more techniques at work, or maybe a strategy to prompt it, we ask:

Why do we need to do math, if a computer can do it best? Do we really need to load dishes into the dishwasher? Do we really need to really know how to code? What is the point of having a “perfect” piece of art? What’s even the point of learning in school? What’s the point of an educator, a teacher? What happens to a child who learned from an AI? Maybe we actually want kids to share homework answers? What is a community? Why is it so hard to have a meeting in person? Do we really even need work? … and so on…

This then goes into a discussion on if the world is gonna change tomorrow, in three months, or 10 years.

Then audience Q&A is endless, in a way that indicates how no one really knows what will happen…

Then i go and find out who went to this talk. So far, surprisingly, the audiences are diverse - writers, journalists, technologists, product designers, backend engineers, musicians… this I think is the most interesting part.

Nonetheless, it seems like my perspective will constantly change, but to capture the moment I feel like I can see (Feb 2026):

Productivity, neatness, completeness, efficiency, speed - this is the value of AI, it brings scale to mind, best practices, elements of work that can contribute rather than shake something up.

Messy, exploratory, innovative, creative- these are the elements that make something come to life, something that ultimately AI is trying to create, but a human and our subjective nature, will determine.

This leads into a thought that I think Megan, you share with me: Creativity to a different entity, a different intelligent creature, will be unique to that being. For a human, it seems like it’s something unexpected, something that feels “new” typically hits this category. If we had infinite knowledge, capabilities, and potential, what would creativity be? The comments between a line of code that communicates a little better? The word you use to describe the way you think?

I’ll keep collecting my thoughts here, but here’s a photo from today’s talk in Chinatown.

Amadeus