It’s all entirely too much to consider, and I hate that.

And all that is to say nothing of the pressure that would come from the political side of things. The enemies I’d make. The people who would want to hurt me and those I love for nothing more than lies and spite.

The mantle of leadership is one I’d never take lightly. And honestly, the weight of it scares me to no end. The responsibility to lead? To make decisions that could help or hurt millions? To know my mistakes could have a cost measured in lives and deaths? That is a great and terrible burden.

But I could do it, if I put my mind to it. I could help lead us forward. I’ve already thought about how I would structure my office, and how I would pay my workers. I’ve thought about what I would do, and how I would seek to bolster my listening. How I would engage with those who disagree.

Is it my anxiety disorder on full display? Maybe. Is it the universe trying to tell me something? Probably not. But that pull has never quite felt as strong as it does lately. I don’t see enough people at the top saying what needs to be said, so I feel like I might need to.

Maybe it’s just my conditioning from growing up in church, or going to Bible college, but I’ve always felt like there’s something…more for me. Like there’s something big I’m supposed to do. It’s a draw I try to deny, but it…I dunno. It feels right when I think about it.

Fear is the mind-killer, but you know what’s stronger than fear? Love. And love has been missing from most of our public discourse for a very, very long time. And I’m not talking romantic love. I’m talking brotherly love. I’m talking love for your neighbors.

I believe in a message of unity. I’d love to hop on a stage together with Bernie and AOC and wax eloquent to stand against the fascists that are trying to destroy everything we hold dear. I’d love to lead in thought and mind, and build a coalition of togetherness.

I truly, truly believe that the rift in our country is being exacerbated by the rich and powerful because the hate machine prints money. And I truly, truly believe that most people have more in common with each other than we have that separates us.

And it’s not me I’m afraid for. It’s my family. It’s my partner. It’s my friends. It’s my cats and my dogs. I don’t feel held back by them, but I desperately need to consider the effects my actions would have on them. If, by acting, I endanger them? I can’t abide that.

Every aspect of my life would need to change if I were to run for office. And that level of change is scary. And with the current administration veering towards authoritarianism, entering politics as an opposition candidate is Not A Good Idea.

But what I’m scared of is what would happen to those near me. I’m afraid of the scrutiny that entering public life would invite, and the lack of privacy inherent in becoming a public figure. You can’t just go home at the end of the day anymore.

I know it’s a point of privilege to be able to entertain the notion of not acting. But I’m trying to live, and I’m trying not to be scared while I’m living. And that’s really hard. When times get tough, we do what we can to survive, and I really believe everyone is doing the best they can.

After all, machine learning straight up wouldn’t work if every query took a massive network of computers. It’s just that AI companies have figured out how to tell computers to iterate more effectively on specific tasks than human engineers can—and it takes a LOT of computers to do it.

This process requires a legion of compute units working in parallel to generate algorithms and test them extremely quickly against parameters set by humans—this is what machine learning is. So creating the AI algorithm takes a lot of energy, but running it? Not so much.

The programs that the computers come up with actually aren’t that complex in the scale of things, and it likely takes more compute power to run a modern game. However, the process by which the computers MAKE the program is extremely expensive.