Looking up at leafy, green deciduous trees in a wooded area. Photo by Mary Warner, June 2023.
technology writing

Greenery to Soothe the Soul

Feelin’ cranky about tech tonight. Well, moreso about the way criminals use tech to take advantage of us. I attended a cybersecurity training today and the presenters explained how hackers are using ChatGPT to create phishing emails that can mimic the way a specific person writes if you train it on the previous writing of that person. From a hacker’s perspective, this is a great way to trap someone in a phishing scheme because the spoofed email they send sounds so authentic.

As a writer whose blogs have been used without permission to train at least one large language model for generative AI, this is depressing as hell. It makes me want to yank everything I’ve contributed to the World Wide Web off of it and become a hermit. Thanks, hackers. Thanks, tech bros who keep building stuff using other people’s creative work without thinking about the ethics and long-term effects of that.

[Deep breath, deep breath, don’t do anything rash.]

After work, I went for a walk in a wooded area.

Being surrounded by greenery was soothing for my soul.

While I consider how I want to shift my online habits, the photos I took on my walk will remind me that there’s more to life than hackers and tech bros.

Wooded area with deciduous trees and green plants. Photo by Mary Warner, June 2023.
Wooded area with deciduous trees and green plants. Photo by Mary Warner, June 2023.
Looking up at leafy, green deciduous trees in a wooded area. Photo by Mary Warner, June 2023.
Looking up at leafy, green deciduous trees in a wooded area. Photo by Mary Warner, June 2023.
A path in the center of a wooded area, with leafy, green deciduous trees and plants. Photo by Mary Warner, June 2023.
A path in the center of a wooded area, with leafy, green deciduous trees and plants. Photo by Mary Warner, June 2023.