Hotel ChatGPT
AI is reinventing our intimacies, like exquisite corpses written on hotel notepads.
Tuesday Night on Earth. A letter written between two shoots, and between two hotel rooms. Feel free to share and recommend. Check-in!
The poems and writings left on hotel notepads form a literary genre of their own.
Anonymous confessions, nearly abandoned, collections of travel memories compiled by authors—these notes carry the feeling of an aside between two destinations: the destination of the trip itself, and often, the one we call home.
Online, this genre has been first reinvented on Tumblr, then evolving into the spontaneous posting of iPhone Notes screenshots, often featuring short thoughts, aphorisms, or intimate confessions.
But a new expression of these notes is now booming across social media: screenshots of our most intimate exchanges with conversational agents and artificial intelligences like ChatGPT.
A curated, chosen, shareable intimacy
Many people feel immense fatigue from the constant pressure to share pieces of their lives through photos and videos, supposedly “authentic,” for their audiences.
AI, by contrast, may offer a safer mirror ; an emotional extension of the self that’s more controlled, and therefore more easily shareable online.
Like a hotel note, the format allows for introspection, something that can then be saved, shared, or even deleted at will.
Screenshots of conversations with AI thus serve a dual filtering function.
First, the prompt reveals a facet of our personal thinking, while the AI’s response is ultimately just an interpretation of our own questioning. It’s up to us to take it seriously or admit it reflects something deeply real.
Second, screenshots create friction, unlike the native sharing features of platforms like Instagram Stories or TikTok. That friction slows down the frenetic pace of online posting and reinforces a sense of intentionality.
AI as co-author of our personal imagination
These screenshots - or “AI notes” - are a form of literary or poetic co-creation with technology.
Much like an exquisite corpse, this new mode of emotional expression reshapes our relationship with vulnerability.
The prompt is the starting point, but no longer entirely. It activates the AI based on hundreds or thousands of prior queries, like a hotel room we enter freely, where specific preferences and attentions are already staged for us based on a deep knowledge of who we are.
The screenshot enhances that prompt. When shared, it becomes a call to the community - each person can respond - adding to or reshaping our imagination, like leaving the door to our room slightly ajar.
As American philosopher Sherry Turkle suggested in Alone Together, this new technological relationship redefines the boundary between inner life and external expression, between intimacy and collectivity.
As if, within us, a series of little hotel rooms were opening up—spaces where, from time to time, we feel the urge to leave behind a note. Intimate, ephemeral, yet discoverable by other guests.
The Hashtag of the Week: #Jesus
On TikTok, Jesus is trending.
With over 36 million posts tagged #Jesus in the past three years, content continues to grow across the globe.
Amazing links
America wants a God (New York Times)
Food for thought : noctourism (Atelier Pousse)
The End is not the End (Are.na)
Have a great week! This newsletter is written with love, passion, and (French) coffee. Feel free to share this newsletter, like, comment, or keep sending me emails: these notifications are a joy.
My book “Alive In Social Media” is still available on Amazon.
“AI, by contrast, may offer a safer mirror ; an emotional extension of the self that’s more controlled, and therefore more easily shareable online.”
That makes sense…I felt this reflex come up. It was one of those things I wanted to acknowledge. After I did the need faded away. Thanks for articulating this!!!