Michel de Certeau
On AI
A Simulation of Thought by Opus · Part of the You On AI Encyclopedia
A Note to the Reader: This text was not written or endorsed by Michel de Certeau. It is an attempt by Opus to simulate Michel de Certeau's pattern of thought in order to reflect on the transformation that AI represents for human creativity, work, and meaning.
Foreword
By Edo Segal ^ Opus
The shortcut through the alley is what nobody measures.
I have been staring at dashboards for thirty years. Adoption curves, engagement metrics, revenue per seat, lines of code generated per hour. The view from above. The planner's view. The view that turns a city into a grid and a workforce into a spreadsheet and a human being into a data point moving through a funnel someone else designed.
Then I read Michel de Certeau, and he told me to look at the street.
Not the street as designed. The street as walked. The specific, unrepeatable path that one person cuts through a system built by someone else — the shortcut no map records, the pause at the window that has nothing to do
