I frequently write about generative AI from the perspective of a writer. Occasionally, a chirkut tech bro with the mental horizon as broad as a his dick will ask what gives me the right to talk about tech when I am not from a tech background. Here is a list of reasons for that unfortunate soul.

1. We all have a "tech background" now. Much as how every company is a tech company now. If nothing else, we can very authoritatively talk about our relationship with personal tech like smartphones, social media, algorithms, and now generative AI.

2. The writer was happy just writing. He didn’t have to talk about your precious AI. You dragged him into it when you plagiarised from him and his people by illegally scraping creative works from all over the internet. Because of this, you left him no choice. He will now talk about AI and you will learn to live with it.

3. I am a journalist by training who studied what was known as New Media in 2005 at one of Asia’s most well-respected journalism institutes. I have had a career in the very same New Media in one form or the other for the greater part of the last two decades. I have watched tech affect and be affected by culture and politics of the world over the same duration of time and written about it. I know this isn’t as fancy as being from the sixteen thousandth IIT from falana town and dhimkana village, but I am sure it counts for something, no?

4. I personally have been online for more than two decades now. In 2006, I was one of the first Twitter users of India and have seen platforms and tools and practices rise and fall like the tides of time. I’m pretty sure that qualifies me to at least have an opinion on what is going on right now, especially because, as pointed out before, it all directly impacts me and my ability to do my work.

As an engineer with little understanding of sociology or history, it is easy for you to float away in the waves of hype and propaganda about AI that is being shoved down all our throats by big tech. For those of us who have gained our perspectives by looking at larger trends, that proves harder. I wish I could be as gullible as you, I really do! But life and experience has made that harder. Ah the innocent optimism of youth unhindered by real life experience and fuelled by trending buzzwords!