Zines, Blogs, Bots: A Love Story

AI-generated using ChatGPT

Taking a Break (But Not Really)

I haven’t blogged in a while. Life, as it does, got full - between work, family, and a growing need for balance, I found myself for the first time in years pursuing interests unrelated to risk. Risk was still my day job, but I knew that if I didn’t pick up other hobbies, I might burn out. So I recalibrated. I started baking bread. I speak Spanish now. If anyone wants to talk riesgo o recetas - en español, I’m your man.  

At times during my break, I wondered if everything that needed to be said about cyber risk, the subject I typically wrote about, had already been said. Even so, I never really stepped away from the subject. I’m still here, still thinking about risk, reading about it, working in it. I can’t seem to quit it.

A Bigger Question

That quiet stretch led me to an uncomfortable, almost existential question: is blogging dead? Have we reached the point of “dead internet,” where so much of what we read is written by bots, recycled endlessly by algorithms, and actual human voices are harder to find? In a world where AI can generate a convincing blog post in seconds, summarize hundreds of sources with ease, and even mimic a writer’s style, does anyone still need to blog at all?

From Zines to Blogs to AI

"DISTRO ZINES http://ilostmyidealism.wordpress.com/" by xkidx is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

This isn’t the first time a format has been displaced. Those of us who remember the 80s and 90s might recall zines - those rough-edged, photocopied little magazines that flourished when personal computers, desktop publishing software, and cheap copy shops made self-publishing possible for the masses. It was such a weird and wonderful time to grow up. Zines were the only way to access certain kinds of pre-internet “forbidden knowledge” or counterculture ideas - punk rock, underground metal, hacking, conspiracy theories, DIY guides, radical politics, even deep dives into oddball topics like serial killers and UFOs. Basically, if it was too niche, too weird, or too edgy for mainstream media, someone probably made a zine about it. I loved it.

They were deeply personal, often raw, and full of passion. And eventually, blogs came along and replaced them. Blogs were faster to publish, easier to find, and reached a wider audience. They made sense. They killed the zine.

Now it seems like the same thing might be happening to blogs.

Still Here

So yeah, it’s a fair question: why blog? Why add one more voice to the noise when a machine can simulate the chorus?

Despite all the ways AI is reshaping our field, or maybe because of it, I believe we’re standing at the edge of something profound. As we inch closer to AGI, the questions around risk become even more complex and important.

AI-generated using ChatGPT

Humans are still essential in risk management, not just for judgment, context, and nuance, but for creativity, ethics, and empathy. Machines can analyze patterns, but they don't yet understand human motivations, cultural shifts, or the emotional undercurrents of decisions. Risk is a human story, and humans are still the best at telling it. We need seasoned professionals not only to guide the field through this transformation, but to train the next generation of risk thinkers, whether they're human or machine.

I feel a real pull, a kind of tug-of-war with AI. On one hand, I know it’s changing the world in ways that will never be the same, and not always for the better. But it’s also completely energizing for a risk professional. There are new things to write about, new philosophical and ethical questions to be pondered. Just like I once gave up zines for blogs, and came to love it, I feel that same shift happening again.

Maybe writing now isn’t just about being heard. Maybe it’s about helping the future, human or machine, understand how we thought about these problems, what we feared, what we hoped. Maybe, just maybe, blogging isn’t dead. It’s evolving.

What’s Next

So what’s next? I’m dusting off the old notepad, flipping through ideas I’ve collected and shelved over the years. I don’t know if blogging is dead, but I do know I’m not done with it yet.