Machines Can't Replace You

on finishing a book that could only have been written by real, live humans

Perfectly imperfect Montana wildflowers in a former Superfund site, A.I. could never

First, I have a new radio documentary out now for the BBC World Service, which digs into the massive yet hidden global economy in human blood, in which Americans are the primary raw material. Working on this project has been fascinating and allowed me to dive deeper into the subject of selling blood – and America’s fractured economic structures that lead people into plasma centers – which I’ve explored in my book, “Blood Money.” The documentary is about half an hour long. You can listen here if you’d like.

Recently I wrote here about the persistent fallacy that small hands are necessary for factory work and how that’s nearly always a cover for labor exploitation. With the continued push to replace humans with A.I. at work and in creative endeavors, I’ve been again thinking back yet again to the lessons I learned in the giant electronics factories of China.

When labor problems surfaced at China’s electronics manufacturing centers, there were always a couple of economists who would tell me it would not matter going forward because automation would replace the human workforce, which would solve the problem of labor abuses. The suicide clusters in at factories southern China would be remedied when machines took over the assembly lines and people were no longer driven to despair at work. When? …soon, I was told. Of course that never fully happened. The notion of automation worked as both an excuse and a threat.

Yes, there is increased automation in manufacturing. But the truth is that humans are not so easily replaced by machines. They are still needed to put things together, to create, to imagine and build. To solve problem. A decade later, we’re still talking about the size of workers’ hands, a very human concern. The robots did not take their jobs, but the rhetoric did succeed in marginalizing concerns about labor abuses. Those threats also served to quiet workers who spoke up. Be grateful for that job, a robot is coming for it. Sound familiar?

All of this, the foisting of environmentally destructive A.I., technology that is very often incredibly wrong, onto societies that aren’t asking for it, has made me even more grateful for a book project I’ve been working on for the past two years. This spring, I’ll be turning in the manuscript of a book about the place I grew up and now live, Montana. I didn’t write it, although I have an essay in the collection. Rather, it’s an anthology of non-fiction writing about the place and its people from two dozen real, live human writers with deep lived experience and connection to their home place, exploring the realities of it and pushing back against toxic mythology.

This project began in 2023, when I asked Missoula writer Chris LaTray to help recruit writers and shape a collection that would, in essence, work to correct the record about Montana. The state has been flooded with incorrect myths and stereotypes since its inception, but things have gotten weirder and more intense in recent years as the pandemic has driven thousands of new residents here seeking space and connection. At times, there’s an overwhelming sense of, “Who are we, anyway?”

The TV series “Yellowstone” didn’t help the cause of authentic portrayals. While the state’s early days were in fact defined in industry by mining, cowboys and fly-fishing lore have drowned out our collective history and realities.

Some months into collecting the two dozen stories or so that now make up the book, something unexpected began to come through in the writing, which is all varied and unique. Although none of the writers were comparing their stories and we hadn’t asked people to consider what others were writing, they were in a conversation of sorts. The stories, which explore land ownership, gentrification, class, race, gender and finding a sense of place in a place that is often inhospitable and deadly, are connected in ways that are difficult to explain. Ways only humans, not artificial intelligence built on labor stolen from people, could develop, through deeply personal and lived experiences.

I’ve talked about this at length with writer Antonia Malchik, who has been copy editing the collection and helping put it all together. The writers have been talking to each other in their essays, without even knowing it. They are deeply connected, in their words, through this place. It’s thrilling to watch unfold and an unexpected honor to experience. At the risk of sounding cheesy, it’s made me believe more than ever in the need for human creativity and connection – machines could simply never do this. At a moment when politics is splitting us apart, this project has made me feel immersed in building something, a little bit of community that feels irreplaceable.

I’ve been tempted to ask Chat GPT to write me a story about Montana to prove my point. But the truth is, I don’t want to go near it after reading what awfulness emerges when others experiment with the technology. This is the worst case I’ve yet seen: https://substack.com/home/post/p-164719684

Instead, I’m wrapping up little edits here and there, working with writers on coming up with appropriate titles for their stories and relishing in a project that is incredibly real and human. I can’t wait for you all to read it.