№4 It Was Never the Woods

Before Alin. Before our children. Before somebody always knew where I was.

I used to walk through Helyar Woods alone. 🌲

Often.

I’d disappear into the trails with my headphones, thoughts, and the kind of confidence you have when no tiny humans depend on you making it home for dinner.

I remember the trees. Their symmetry.

The stretches where I couldn’t see another person.

The stillness. The steep drop views of the Raritan. 🎶 on the banks of the old Raritan 🎶

The occasional realization that I was a woman, alone, pretty far into the woods.

And I remember not being afraid.

At least, not of the woods.

If I heard branches moving, I wondered what animal was nearby.

If I saw another person, I paid attention.

That distinction has stayed with me.

I’m rarely afraid of nature.

The ocean can kill me.

A tree can fall.

Lightning does not need my consent.

But none of them want anything from me.

The ocean isn’t plotting.

The forest doesn’t dislike me.

The dark isn’t waiting for me.

Nature can be brutal.

But it cannot be cruel.

Cruelty requires intention.

And intention is a human thing.

Maybe that’s why our current fear of artificial intelligence fascinates me.

We talk about the machine like it’s the thing lurking in the woods.

I understand why. It is powerful. Increasingly autonomous. Capable of doing things most of us couldn’t have imagined a few years ago.

It deserves scrutiny.

But I keep coming back to the woods.

The technology itself isn’t what unsettles me most.

I want to know who built it.

Who trained it.

Who benefits from it.

Who decided what it should optimize for.

Who is holding the flashlight.

And who is walking behind me.

We have a strange habit of giving objects agency and humans plausible deniability.

AI did it.

The algorithm decided.

The system failed.

Sometimes, maybe.

But somewhere upstream, there is usually a human decision.

So no.

I’m still not particularly afraid of the woods.

I’m interested in who else is walking through them.