I used to need about half a day per month to handle my personal business. That amount of time has tripled, mainly due to the skyrocketing degree of ineptitude on the other side of these transactions. AI receptionists, unwanted apps and other substitutes for human interaction have made everything worse. You can’t refill a prescription if the AI receptionist doesn’t recognize the name of the medication. It’s getting harder and harder to get an actual person — someone capable of exercising judgment — on the phone. Punching zero rarely summons a human being anymore.
These nonhuman services use enormous amounts of water and energy to process information, furthering the aridification of a West already locked in perpetual drought amid a rapidly accelerating climate crisis. If you’ve wondered, Why on earth are we doing this? you’re not alone. Whose time is this supposedly saving? Whose jobs are being eliminated? Whose futures are we stealing as we hand over control to the computers? And what about the aggregation, the sifting through original research and reporting and synthesizing it, regardless of how reliable any single source is, or whether any of it was even fact-checked? Ask Google a question, and your top answer comes courtesy of artificial intelligence. Do not accept an AI summary as a substitute for journalism, ever.
This is a matter of both quality and conscience. The story package at the heart of this issue, a partnership with ProPublica, was produced by two journalists, Mark Olalde and Jimmy Tobias, who spent more than a year investigating the public-lands ranching programs run by the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service, asking who benefits, who profits, and how much damage is being done. They filed more than 100 public records requests and sued the BLM to obtain its data. That’s how journalism gets done, day by day. It should be noted that AI transcription services have been used by journalists for years. But HCN will never rely on AI for any part of the process that requires judgment. Our journalism is produced by journalists — writers and editors and artists and photographers and designers and fact checkers whose goal is to deliver stories that open your eyes and make you think. Stories prepared by humans and full of humanity.
This publication has a long legacy of watchdogging federal agencies and communicating what is happening on the ground across the West. It’s why we’re here. It’s also why I hope you will consider supporting HCN as the year draws to a close. We have a team of very helpful humans available to assist you with making donations or purchasing gift subscriptions for friends and family. If you need any assistance, just give us a ring. We answer the phone.
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