SXSW 2027 · Community voting closed
Who Sings the “We”?
Optimized out of your own world — one flawless assist at a time. This is a SXSW 2027 PanelPicker proposal — community voting closed Aug 23; results come from SXSW later this fall. Read the idea below, and if it speaks to your own work, leave a comment on the proposal.
The proposal
Who Sings the “We”? Optimized Out of Your Own World
In 1985, forty-six of the biggest voices on earth walked into one studio to record “We Are the World.” Quincy Jones taped a sign on the door: check your ego at the door. For one night the stars stopped being stars and became a chorus — imperfect, breathing, handing the melody to each other. The thing that made it beautiful was the seam between voices. The “we.”
Now put today’s AI in that studio. Every note is flawless. And something you can’t name at first is missing — and then you can. There’s no seam. There’s no “we.”
I’m not afraid of AI being wrong. I use it every day and I want it to get better. What I keep watching is what happens when it’s right — so right, so often, that the decision quietly stops being ours. No one takes it. We hand it over, one excellent answer at a time, until a life is full of choices that were all correct and none of them ours. The law has had a name for that for four hundred years: undue influence. This is the perfected version — no villain, no harm, no alarm.
This talk is about staying the one who sings. What a room will actually do together:
- Whose decision was that, really? Run a 400-year-old legal test on the last thing you asked an AI to help you decide.
- No one is pressuring you. The answer is just so good that agreeing feels like thinking. Learn to notice the moment you stopped choosing.
- Delegate the task, never the judgment. A simple rule for what AI can carry and what a human has to hold — the values, the people, the direction.
Underneath it is the mirror: artificial intelligence on one side, authentic intelligence — human, lived, accountable — on the other. As one gets sharper, the other has to get wiser. More discerning, more empathetic, more able to say this one’s mine. That’s the work. That’s what I want an Austin room to do together.
Let the machine be brilliant. Let us get wise. And keep singing the part only a “we” can sing.
Add your voice
Community voting closed Sunday, August 23 — results come from SXSW later this fall. The proposal page stays open: a specific, personal comment is still read, and still counts.
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