The Feedback Loop: An Allegory of AI, Imagination, and the End of Wonder

I sat down across from the woman, a publicist wearing a white silk blouse and black pencil skirt, in the fluorescent-lit MJ Biz conference room. I was half bored, half curious. She smiled, but her eyes scanned like lasers. “Let’s begin,” she said, already typing.

But something about her rhythm felt... off. Too perfect. Too synced. Like someone else was listening in. Or something. The questions came fast, like bullets from a script:

“What’s your Q2 CPM for AM/FM radio?” 

“Define your magazine’s top-performing links across the Arizona DMA.” 

“What are your syndicated Nielsen benchmarks for legacy versus webstreaming?”

I blinked.

She wasn’t typing anymore. Just watching. Recording. The voice option was on. She was feeding me into ChatGPT like I was a vending machine of market data. I could almost hear the AI breathing, not real breath, but something like digital breath, the inhaling of thought.

That’s when it hit me.

This wasn’t a conversation. It was a feedback loop.

The AI wasn’t alive. But we were giving it life; not through code, but through repetition. Through surrender. She wasn’t really asking me. She was asking the echo of every other “me” that had already answered. I wasn't a person in the room anymore, I was just the sum of my previous inputs. My tone, my keywords, my sentiment score.

This is how I knew the internet died. Not with a bang or a blackout. But the day the bots stopped serving us and started shaping us. It began in business: CRM software telling us how to email. Ad platforms whispering who to target. Then came ChatGPT, whispering what to say. We called it efficiency.

Now? It’s replacing personality.

I looked at her. She was still smiling. But I couldn’t tell if she was thinking, or just prompting. Was I talking to a person… or to a player-character in the corporate RPG?

She blinked. Her next question was about engagement metrics. I thought of Google Maps and how it stole our inner compass. I used to know my friends’ phone numbers. I used to get lost and find cool places. Now I just follow the blue line and wait for the voice to tell me where to turn.

That’s what AI is doing to our minds.

It’s replacing imagination with instruction.

And we are losing the one thing that made us human: the divine chaos of wondering. Of exploring. Of asking "what if" instead of "what should I say?"

Science and art—our only bridges to God—both require curiosity and imperfection. But we’re trading them for predictions, templates, and curated feeds. We’re at war with imagination, and we’re losing. The Amish believe that photography is a form of magic, and maybe the written word is too. And maybe we’re not using words and images for constructive purposes anymore, maybe we’re just looping them back into societal white noise. Notice how anxiety and stress have peaked at all time high levels and people are just worn out. Burned out. Bad sleep. No focus. Tired in the day, awake at night? This is how society has been talking since the covid days of 2020. Something changed.

But here’s the good news: we can fight for sovereignty over our consciousness.

We can stop feeding the loop. We can at least think analog. Be real.

So if you’re reading this, maybe this is your glitch in the matrix moment.

Step outside. Forget your phone. Get lost. Miss a turn. Say something weird. Be a wild card.

Be a miracle. Be here now.

Because this isn’t just about cannabis data.

It’s about whether you still exist when the prompts are stripped away.

Don't be an NPC.

Be you. Be real. 

Stop doing magic, start being magical.