It might not be true, but it is real. AI, SF and our culture.
“It might not be true, but it is real.” This was the recent advice given to us at Curriculum Night by the Head of Upper School (Grades 5–8) where my daughter is a student. Loosely translated — as it relates to the parenting of teenage girls: whatever feelings they’re manifesting; whatever they believe in happening to them; whatever the probabilities they are assigning to outcomes of these situations — they might not always be logical or likely but they are 100% authentic. So if your attempt to ‘help’ them is just to bypass their emotions and go straight to logic, while unintentionally refuting their lived experience, well, that’s not going to work.
Seems like this holds true for not just my daughter’s age range but perhaps all humans? Or at least that’s what I was pondering when reading Jasmine Sun’s latest essay “ 🌻 are you high-agency or an NPC? “
It is easy to think from the outside that San Francisco is the one place on earth insulated from crisis. Everyone else is living in fear of political upheaval and mass job loss, while the rich nerds discovered suit jackets and now they’re the ones on top. “My mutuals run the world,” goes one Twitter refrain.
For the tech industry as a whole, this may be true. But for most individual participants, the swagger is a gilded surface, paper-thin.
She goes on to cover the zeitgeist of the SF AI scene in a way that reminded me of the opening quote about reality and truth. What she’s describing is definitely real, but is it also true? In the question of, are the people described accurately understanding the environment around them or is it more of a feeling distorted by the echo chamber, status maximizing, and safety seeking? And is it true for enough of our community or just a narrow (but influential) segment of AI maximalist, highly online, 18–32 year old SF folks?
Increasingly talking about ‘tech’ in general conjures the Blind Men and the Elephant parable — the animal you think you’re describing is very different depending on which part of the beast you grabbed.
Jasmine, who is a wonderful writer, closes with her own metaphoric comp, a recent sauna visit
Back in the sauna, the temperature is climbing. We hold our heads in our hands, trying not to overheat. There’s a stinging on my collar and I realize I forgot to remove my necklace. A first-timer burns the soles of his feet.Finally, I’ve had enough. We file out, and plunge into cold water.
Originally published at https://hunterwalk.com on September 22, 2025.
