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The Who Cares Era | dansinker.com

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The Who Cares Era谁在乎时代

Earlier this week, it was discovered that the Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer had both published an externally-produced "special supplement" that contained facts, experts, and book titles entirely made up by an AI chatbot. There's been a lot written about this (former Chicago Reader editor Martha Bayne's is the best), and I don't need to rehash it all. But the thing that is most disheartening to me is how at every step along the way, nobody cared.本周早些时候，人们发现《芝加哥太阳时报》和《费城问询报》都发表了一份外部制作的“特别增刊”，其中包含完全由人工智能聊天机器人编造的事实、专家和书名。关于这一点已经写了很多（前《芝加哥读者》编辑玛莎·贝恩的最好），我不需要全部重复。但最让我沮丧的是，一路上的每一步，都没有人在乎。

The writer didn't care. The supplement's editors didn't care. The biz people on both sides of the sale of the supplement didn't care. The production people didn't care. And, the fact that it took two days for anyone to discover this epic fuckup in print means that, ultimately, the reader didn't care either.作者不在乎。该增刊的编辑并不在乎。销售补充剂双方的商人并不在乎。制作人员并不在乎。而且，事实上，任何人花了两天时间才在印刷品中发现这个史诗般的混蛋，这意味着最终读者也并不在乎。

It's so emblematic of the moment we're in, the Who Cares Era, where completely disposable things are shoddily produced for people to mostly ignore.它非常象征着我们所处的时刻，即“谁在乎的时代”，在这个时代，完全一次性的东西被粗制滥造，人们大多被忽视。

AI is, of course, at the center of this moment. It's a mediocrity machine by default, attempting to bend everything it touches toward a mathematical average. Using extraordinary amounts of resources, it has the ability to create something good enough, a squint-and-it-looks-right simulacrum of normality. If you don't care, it's miraculous. If you do, the illusion falls apart pretty quickly. The fact that the userbase for AI chatbots has exploded exponentially demonstrates that good enough is, in fact, good enough for most people. Because most people don't care.当然，人工智能是这一时刻的中心。默认情况下，它是一台平庸的机器，试图将它所触及的一切弯曲到数学平均值。使用大量的资源，它有能力创造出足够好的东西，一个眯着眼睛看起来正确的常态模拟物。如果你不在乎，那就是奇迹。如果你这样做了，幻觉很快就会瓦解。人工智能聊天机器人的用户群呈指数级增长的事实表明，对于大多数人来说，足够好实际上已经足够好了。因为大多数人并不在乎。

(It's worth pointing out that I'm not a full-throated hater and know people—coders, mostly—who work with AI that do care and have used it to make real, meaningful things. Most people, however, use it quickly and thoughtlessly to make more mediocrity.) （值得指出的是，我并不是一个彻头彻尾的仇恨者，也认识那些与人工智能合作的人——主要是程序员——他们确实关心并用它来制作真实、有意义的东西。然而，大多数人会快速而轻率地使用它来制造更多的平庸。

It's easy to blame this all on AI, but it's not just that. Last year I was deep in negotiations with a big-budget podcast production company. We started talking about making a deeply reported, limited-run show about the concept of living in a multiverse that I was (and still am) very excited about. But over time, our discussion kept getting dumbed down and dumbed down until finally the show wasn't about the multiverse at all but instead had transformed into a daily chat show about the Internet, which everyone was trying to make back then. Discussions fell apart.人们很容易将这一切都归咎于人工智能，但不仅如此。去年，我与一家大预算的播客制作公司进行了深入的谈判。我们开始讨论制作一部关于生活在多元宇宙中的概念的深度报道的限量节目，我对此感到（现在仍然）非常兴奋。但随着时间的推移，我们的讨论越来越愚蠢，直到最后这个节目根本不是关于多元宇宙的，而是变成了一个关于互联网的日常聊天节目，当时每个人都在努力制作。讨论破裂了。

Looking back, it feels like a little microcosm of everything right now: Over the course of two months, we went from something smart that would demand a listener's attention in a way that was challenging and new to something that sounded like every other thing: some dude talking to some other dude about apps that some third dude would half-listen-to at 2x speed while texting a fourth dude about plans for later.回想起来，现在感觉就像是一切的缩影：在两个月的时间里，我们从以一种具有挑战性和新奇的方式需要听众注意力的聪明事物转变为听起来像其他事物的东西：一个家伙与其他家伙谈论应用程序，第三个家伙会以 2 倍的速度半听，同时给第四个家伙发短信询问以后的计划。

Hanif Abdurraqib, in one of his excellent Instagram mini-essays the other week, wrote about the rise of content that's designed to be consumed while doing something else. In Hanif's case, he was writing about Time Machine, his incredible 90 minute deep dive into The Fugees' seminal album The Score. Released in 2021, Hanif marveled at the budget, time, and effort that went into crafting the two-part 90 minute podcast and how, today, there's no way it would have happened.哈尼夫·阿卜杜拉奇布 （Hanif Abdurraqib） 在上周的一篇出色的 Instagram 迷你文章中写道，这些内容旨在在做其他事情时消费。就哈尼夫而言，他正在写关于 Time Machine，这是他对 The Fugees 开创性专辑 The Score 的令人难以置信的 90 分钟深入研究。哈尼夫于 2021 年发布，对制作由两部分组成的 90 分钟播客所投入的预算、时间和精力感到惊讶，以及今天，它不可能发生。

He's right. Nobody's funding that kind of work right now, because nobody cares.他是对的。现在没有人资助这种工作，因为没有人在乎。

(It's worth pointing out that Hanif wrote this using Stories, a system that erased it 24 hours later. Another victim of the Who Cares Era.) （值得指出的是，哈尼夫是使用 Stories 编写的，该系统在 24 小时后将其删除。谁在乎时代的另一个受害者。

Of course we're all victims of the biggest perpetrators of this uncaring era, as the Trump administration declares "Who Cares?" to vast swaths of the federal government, to public health, to immigrant families, to college students, to you, to me. As Elon Musk's DOGE rats gnaw their way through federal agencies, not caring is their guiding light. They cut indiscriminately, a smug grin on their faces. That they believe they can replace government workers—people who care an extraordinary amount about their arcane corner of the bureaucracy—with hastily-written AI code is another defining characteristic of right now.当然，我们都是这个冷漠时代最大肇事者的受害者，正如特朗普政府对联邦政府的广大地区、公共卫生、移民家庭、大学生、你、我宣称的“谁在乎”。当埃隆·马斯克 （Elon Musk） 的 DOGE 老鼠在联邦机构中啃咬一条血路时，不关心是它们的指路明灯。他们不分青红皂白地砍伐，脸上挂着得意的笑容。他们相信自己可以用仓促编写的人工智能代码取代政府工作人员——那些非常关心官僚机构神秘角落的人——是目前的另一个决定性特征。

I keep coming back to the word "disheartening," because it all really is.我不断回到“令人沮丧”这个词，因为这一切都是真的。

Without getting into too many specifics, I recently was involved in reviewing hundreds of applications for something. Over the course of reviewing, I was struck by the nearly-identical phrasing that threaded through dozens of the applications. It was eerie at first, like seeing a shadow in the distance, then frustrating, and ultimately completely disheartening: It was AI. For whatever their reasons, a bunch of people had used a chatbot to help write their answers to questions that asked them to draw from their own, unique, personal experience. They had fed their resumes or their personal websites or their actual stories and experiences into the machine, and it had filled in the blanks, Mad Libs-style. I felt crushed.在不涉及太多细节的情况下，我最近参与了对数百份申请的审查。在审查过程中，我对贯穿数十个应用程序的几乎相同的措辞感到震惊。起初很怪异，就像在远处看到一个影子，然后令人沮丧，最终完全令人沮丧：这是人工智能。无论出于何种原因，一群人都使用聊天机器人来帮助撰写问题的答案，这些问题要求他们从自己独特的个人经历中汲取灵感。他们将自己的简历、个人网站或实际故事和经历输入机器，机器填补了空白，就像 Mad Libs 一样。我感到被压垮了。

Until.直到。

Until I read an application written entirely by a person. And then another. And another. They glowed with delight and joy and sadness and with the unexpected at every turn.直到我读到一份完全由一个人写的申请。然后是另一个。还有另一个。他们闪耀着喜悦、喜悦和悲伤，处处都洋溢着意想不到的事情。

They were human.他们是人。

They were written by people that cared.它们是由关心的人写的。

In the Who Cares Era, the most radical thing you can do is care.在谁在乎的时代，你能做的最激进的事情就是关心。

In a moment where machines churn out mediocrity, make something yourself. Make it imperfect. Make it rough. Just make it.在机器生产出平庸的时刻，自己做点东西。让它变得不完美。让它变得粗糙。做吧。

At a time where the government's uncaring boot is pressing down on all of our necks, the best way to fight back is to care. Care loudly. Tell others. Get going.在政府冷漠的靴子压在我们所有人的脖子上的时候，最好的反击方法就是关心。大声关心。告诉别人。开始吧。

As the culture of the Who Cares Era grinds towards the lowest common denominator, support those that are making real things. Listen to something with your full attention. Watch something with your phone in the other room. Read an actual paper magazine or a book.随着“谁在乎”时代的文化朝着最低的公分母发展，支持那些正在创造真实事物的人。全神贯注地听一些东西。在另一个房间用手机看一些东西。阅读一本真正的纸质杂志或一本书。

Be yourself.做你自己。

Be imperfect.不完美。

Be human.做人。

Care.关心。

Published May 23, 2025. | 发布于 2025 年 5 月 23 日。