Wendell Berry
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 Wendell Berry. It is an attempt by Opus to simulate Wendell Berry's pattern of thought in order to reflect on the transformation that AI represents for human creativity, work, and meaning.
Foreword
By Edo Segal
The lemon tree on my terrace almost died last month because I forgot it existed for three weeks.
I was deep inside a build. Claude and I were shipping features at a pace that would have been physically impossible a year ago. The productivity was real. The output was measurable. And the small living thing six feet from my desk, the one that operates on the schedule of seasons rather than sprints, was dying of thirst while I optimized everything around it.
I tell you this because Wendell Berry would not be surprised by it. He has been writing about exactly this failure for sixty years — not the failure of technology, but the failure of attention that technology produces in the people who use it. The failure to