Mercedes Torrendell, writing on AI, language, people

mercedes torrendell writing on ai, language, people

what is said

“AI is stealing our jobs.”

what could be said

Our jobs are being rewritten. We can still be the ones holding the pen.

This page is a small map of what I am working toward: the full picture, as many sides of the story as I can sit down with, from the people building the technology to the people living with it. Then the part I care about most, the translation. Brief, human, to the point. Not there yet. Getting there.

what I've done

interviews

I interview creative people about technology for The Creative Independent. It's where I bring the AI conversation: to the art community, a perspective mostly missing from how tech gets told. One question at a time, to keep it digestible.

César Fieiras Researcher, on the complex influence of ai in creative industries tci Roopa Vasudevan Media artist, on creative resistance in the digital world tci
Valerie Fuchs Developer and creative-coding teacher. On what happens to visible struggle, imposter syndrome, and the joy of ideas when AI does the hard part. in drafts
Lois Rosson, historian at NASA Historian at NASA, writing how we decided what outer space looks like. upcoming
all interviews → More conversations at the creative independent tci

essays

The Word Menu Sovereignty, compute, open weights, agents, the AI Act, slop: how they say it, and what it is, in words you can actually use. substack We Are Not Being Given the Words to Want Differently A glossary essay substack The Unfinished Sentence They used to deny us the words. Now they finish them for us. On how AI takes choice away not by scarcity, but by fluency. substack

what I'd bring

collaborations

SOFTER Global SOFTER Global, a new organization on the social side of tech and AI. Pitched their newsletter, SOFTER News, now leading its development: the sections, the stories, the voice. First issue November 2026. collaboration · in the works

ideas I have been iterating on

Concepts I keep coming back to. Each one is an idea and a format at once.

The debate: the AI race, from two chairs.

The AI race, answered side by side by two people who see it from opposite corners. Short plain turns. I translate the jargon going in, and find the overlap coming out.

The essay: our 24 languages are a shield.

Everyone treats Europe's 24 languages as a problem. Maybe they're a shield, one reason foreign software can't just walk in. There's already a project building open AI models for all 24.

reading: OpenEuroLLM · Headline's AI Europe 100 · Europe 2031

The reflective interview: one conversation, one essay.

One long conversation, written into an essay that thinks around the best sentences: part profile, part reflection.

who I read

The people who already do what I'm learning to do: explain technology in words everyone gets.

Ethan Mollick, One Useful Thing AI explained calmly, for people with actual jobs. Carissa Véliz Privacy and power, in sentences anyone can follow. Her WIRED essay: if AI is predicting your future, are you still free? wired Europe 2031 The warning that started this chapter. Rest of World Tech stories told through people, from the places most media forgets.
Marietje Schaake How power actually moves through technology.