Stay on Designated Path

Somewhere off I-15 South in Utah, I pulled into a scenic overlook to stretch my legs and use the restroom. I wandered down the dirt path to get a better view of the limestone canyon and rested my eyes on the clear blue sky, scattered with a few wispy clouds far in the distance. Directly in front of me, my shadow rolled off the cliff, cast from the sun bearing over my shoulder. It was 10:40 in the morning.

I walked back to my car and noticed a “Stay on Designated Path” sign, a caution I had completely missed upon arrival. It was covered in stickers, although that’s not the reason I didn’t notice it – I’m sure I was simply looking beyond it. But now, it arrested me. Among the marginal variety of stickers – ADV Outfitters, 24, a Mexican flag, Daddy Daycare Off Road (DDOR), a monkey in a spacesuit, Notorious North, a smiling cat, and a few QR codes – there was larger image of a barrel of a gun pointed at a man’s temple partially covering the word “Path.” I was struck by this image of violence, deliberately placed, in the middle of nowhere.

I wondered who left it and why and when? What message were they trying to communicate? I didn’t know how to read the sign anymore. It had suddenly become an anonymous piece of art in the desert so I stood there for a few minutes, wrestling with this disturbance, wondering. I had no idea then that two months later I’d have developed a strong point of view on many things since moving to California, one of them being the influence artificial intelligence is having on our ability to think critically. Sometimes it feels like the tech billionaires are holding the gun. Sometimes it feels heavy in our own hands.

And the government? Oh right. They’re the ones who put the sign up in the first place.