The "Humanity by Proxy" Book
And an announcement
This post is a little different. First, this week marks my one-year anniversary on Substack. This is, in fact, weekly post number 52! Second, my book came out this week! Humanity by Proxy: Essays at The Intersection of Philosophy and AI is a collection of essays drawn from this very Substack newsletter. The paperback, hard cover, and eBook are all available now. The audiobook should be out in a couple of weeks.
This week, I thought I would tell you about the how the book came to be and then make an announcement about the future of Views Expressed.
The Content:
There are no surprises here. Each essay in the book began as a weekly Substack post and required only minor editing (I changed phrases like “last week” to things like “in 2025”). I did exclude a few, but only a few. I started putting the book together in October, so I didn’t have the full year’s worth of essays to work with. I ended up publishing 42 of the weekly essays. Then the final essay in the book, “From Babel to Bots,” had been previously published only on the paid Views Expressed channel.
As you know, I committed to creating one charcoal sketch per essay at the beginning of this process. I maintained that throughout the year, though it really wasn’t easy (and, in many cases, I’m far more proud of the writing than I am of the sketching).
For kicks, here are two sketches side-by-side. Of one, I am proud. The other fills me with self-loathing and the kind of shame I have only previously felt when “shame-scarfing that shame-flavored donut.”
But, because I had put so much work into the sketches, it was important to me to include them in the book.
Once I had all the pieces pulled together, I found a freelance book designer on fiverr (Verve Books) who built the book’s layout.
The Cover:
I’m sorry, but we are still stuck on the visual arts. It was important to me that I create the artwork for the cover. The sketch is an obvious homage to Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam,” with a robot hand standing in for Adam’s hand.
Here’s Michelangelo’s original:
I had already played with the Creation of Adam-but-with-a-robot-hand theme in the Views Expressed essay, “AI Requires a Human Touch” back in May of last year. But that one was hastily done (at a Brewery, in fact). The hand of God, which looks very much like a human hand, was alright. I leaned too heavily on the white charcoal for the shading, but other than that, I was happy with it. I was less satisfied with the robot hand.
Human hands are notoriously hard to draw. Who would have thought that robot hands are even harder!
So, here is my admission to using ChatGPT for the art. I did not have ChatGPT produce the final sketch. But I did have ChatGPT give me an image of a robot hand articulated much as Adam’s hand is articulated in the painting so that I had something to look at as I drew. If this causes you to lose all respect for me as an artist, that is my burden to bear.
So, for the book cover, I wanted to try again and give it the time it deserved. It went more quickly than I thought. The sketch is on a larger piece of paper than what I use for the weekly posts, so, naturally that takes a little longer to do just as a matter of geometry. Even so, I probably finished the sketch in about three days. I’m really quite happy with how it turned out. I was even able to add some of the cracks in the Sistine Chapel ceiling that you can see in the real painting.
Once the artwork was done, I found a graphic artist on fiverr (Bespoke Book Cover Designs) who helped me with the rest of the cover. I’m really happy with how it turned out.
The Audio
Whoo boy, the audio was a bit of a struggle. I wasn’t planning to produce an audiobook at first, but Steve, a faithful reader and coffeeshop writing compatriot, encouraged me to do it. ACX—Amazon’s platform that enables independent authors to publish to Audible—does provide options to work with a professional narrator or even to use an AI-generated voice. But I have strong feelings about this. Someday, I’ll be gone. And I think my kids will appreciate that they can hear me read my own work in my own voice. That’s why I was so insistent that my publisher let me narrate my first book. I may ultimately be wrong about this, but it’s important enough to me that I wanted to go through the ordeal.
I’ve been recording audio as an amateur for years. I know I had the right equipment (large diaphragm mics, an audio-to-digital converter with phantom power, etc.). But my house is not conducive to audio recording (a lesson I’ve learned week over week as I’ve produced the audio for these Substack posts). We live on the corner. We’re near a park. The dogs bark at everything and everyone (and their feud with the squirrels is some straight-up Montague and Capulet-type stuff). And the house was built fifty years ago. So, from the basement, I can hear every step, every opening and closing door, and every running faucet.
I knew I needed an additional layer of noise dampening. Enter: the Blanket Fort.
I really did consider other options—a 5’ x 5’ outdoor tent; building a wooden-framed recording studio and stuffing it with pillows, and even professional studio wall treatments. But the most cost-effective way to dampen the sound in my house was to buy an actual blanket fort kit, then to cover it in heavy blankets (and especially moving blankets). So, that’s what I did.
The weight of those blankets tested the structural integrity of those plastic fort-building kit pieces like they were rocket parts going to the moon. Every time I climbed into the stupid thing, it leaned further and further toward total collapse.
And there I sat for what felt like days on end, recording (and often re-recording) every last word of the book.
A funny thing happened as I re-read these 43 essays, though. I remembered just how good they are. I’m proud of what I’ve written and I really do think the essays are book-worthy. The end result of all of this madness is a book that I’m reasonably proud of that would never have existed at all if you lot hadn’t spent the last year reading these Substack essays.
As I say in the book’s acknowledgments. Writers need readers. Thank you.
The Announcement
And so, one year into this adventure, sitting in my home-made blanket fort recording studio, I had a bit of a revelation. I need to spend a little more time trying to get my work published out in the wide world and a little less time on Substack. I’m not going to stop publishing here entirely, but I am releasing myself from the commitment to publish weekly. You’ll still see my essays (and maybe even some sketches) drop into your inbox from time to time. But, from this point forward, the essays will be periodic and sporadic, rather than weekly.
I hope you’ll stick with me.
Credit Where It’s Due
I remain grateful to all those have encouraged me to write these essays over the last year, not least of which are Megan, Joseph, Steve, Kim, Frank, Bri, Claudia, and Bob.
Thank you.