Contrariwise: Stick to Your (Analog) Guns

It’s hard not to notice that companies keep cramming so-called artificial intelligence into every type of product these days. And with the internet flooded with A.I.-generated videos, music, and “art,” it’s harder still not to be annoyed by it.

We’ve been here before, though. Not with A.I., of course, but with every innovation that came before it. Whenever some great new technology comes along, businesses of all stripes try to integrate it into their products to make them more useful, or at least more tempting to consumers.

This rush to merge new tech with old is how we got internet-connected umbrellas, ink pens that play MP3s, Bluetooth water bottles, and now A.I. toothbrushes. (These are all real devices you can buy online but shouldn’t.) And it isn’t just physical products. It’s reflected in social media updates being added to websites. It’s all those online businesses “pivoting to video.” It’s a bespoke smartphone app that lets you stay connected with, for some reason, your plumber.

This is how progress works now.

Each powerful new technological advance becomes a gimmick in the hands of consumer culture. People calling themselves innovators and disruptors shoehorn it into their products, trying to stay ahead of their competitors and hoping that they’ll happen upon the Next Big Thing — and make themselves millionaires.

Some of those products prove useful and stick around. A few become integral and push progress even further.

Most, though, go out of production, and the leftover stock shows up first at closeout and liquidation shops, then at resale shops, and finally at the garbage dump. It’s a cycle we’ve been through before, and we’ll go through it again.

Which means that, at any given time, there are thousands of silly, ill-conceived, and just plain cockamamy products with short lifespans cluttering up the consumer space.

But it also means there’s absolutely nothing wrong with preferring a retractable tape measure over a laser distance meter, or a turntable over a music streaming service, or a good old book (or magazine!) made from wood pulp, ink, and glue. Those products have all come through this inane cycle of “progress” and proven their worth.

The cycle will continue, but there’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t want to participate.

The current trend toward all-A.I. all the time probably won’t begin to end until we see the next big technological advance-turned-gimmick that simply must be incorporated into everyday products. Time will tell whether it will be programmable microbes, low-cost quantum computers, metaversal communication, or something else, but one thing’s for sure: Someone will use it to create a toothbrush with more computing power than the International Space Station, but it won’t get your teeth any whiter.

This article is featured in the May/June 2025 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.