Dipika Kohli
By Dipika Kohli
Maybe it’s just an old habit from a past life as a reporter. Maybe it’s my interest in other people, their stories. Maybe it’s something else, an aversion to the internet? But when I want to know something, like for real, like, really care about it and want to understand it, I do not turn to AI.
I ask people.
Real human beings. Mostly, people I know, or who know people I know. It’s hit and miss, but it’s a different quality of data.
I mean, I want to ask people who have a particular way of understanding a topic and can speak with authority on it. Not just the bland ol’ internet. I had a bad habit of trusting Reddit too much there for a while, before recognizing it as the echo chamber it really is. But a mix of views matters to me. This may be why I gather people together who come from very different backgrounds, have different first languages, and these days aren’t even geographically close, for conversations. Real ones. I am very handy now with Telegram. Learning some of the other ones: Signal, Discord… LINE.
I want to ask the people would know a thing or two about a subject, a viewpoint, or a trend. Sea change stories. Amazing to research, and they interview a lot of people whom I’ve built relationships with over time. Trust is there. Trust, built by rapport, quality exchanges. Mutuality. And a shared belief that asking questions to find out things is important, if you care about truly learning.
But asking questions of people is getting harder, now, too. You write to someone and they write you back like they’re an AI. Never in my life did I expect to write to someone who replied with a generic email with the lines, ‘Are you a human being Thanks for transparency.’
I could go into a long paragraph about a philosophy of identity, and how things that contradict one another co-exist and change within us, as we go. I could. But I’ll spare you. I’ll just let you know that sometimes, when I’m really lost, I want to talk to a lot of people and ask, ‘What do you make of this?’ A few years ago, it was, ‘Should I move home?’ I called people who knew me from high school days and even before. I asked ‘How is it there? Like, really?’ Knowing me and what I value, they could advise me with some real truth. This data, this was gold.
But learning from people I’ve met in a more recent past matter, too. Even when we’re from different hemispheres or generations, I will listen. I have been able to unlearn my own programming. I relax when I feel alignment. What I value also matters to them. Choosing our own paths, for example, going against the grain. We can be cool with ourselves. We can go, ‘Yeah, that’s right. I cared about this, not that, and that’s why I’m here, not there.’ You don’t have to have a lot to be a lot, I used to say. I still say it. Stuff is just… well, stuff. It’s not you. It doesn’t define you. You get to do that.
When I got a reply saying for sure that the person was a real human being, I was relieved but also a little surprised by what came next. As a reporter, one thing I’d ask people to do if they referred me to a bland website is say, ‘Can you talk about that in your own words?’ Ideally on a call. But the person said, ‘Go to the website.’ This experience felt very much like AI, but without the sugary politeness, and AI-ish pat on the back for me having superlative queries. I did the equivalent of the 90s version of hanging up a landline phone. I pressed delete. It was too lovely rainy afternoon in Phnom Penh to bother with figuring out what to say next. Clearly some people you can talk to, and some people you cannot. That’s okay. I’m going to accept it now instead of wanting things to be any other way than what they really are.
Even that is a strange concoction of bias and inaccuracies, too. I’m telling you, I’m reading and writing about the philosophy of identity. Metaphysics and how we perceive are so, so subjective. Rather than get bent out of shape, I just watched the rain for a while.
Rainy season has just started here in Phnom Penh. The rain is so nice. Paying attention to it, hearing the sound of it, these things always make me feel much better.
Dipika Kohli is an author who is based in Phnom Penh. Discover her books at kismuth.com and other projects at dipikakohli.com.
