All of us who learned to write long before the Internet and its friends ever existed are extremely grateful for that, I'm sure. I can't speak for anyone but myself...
I saw a picture someone posted of their child laying on the floor writing a story. Struck me that there have always been kids who want to write and there have always been kids who don't. One of my best writers on Medium is 15.
Yes! I am so happy that I am a child of the late 70s, grew up in the 80s and 90s, and learned how to write, how to research (in a library no less) and can experience the joy of creating, truly creating, through my own blood, sweat, and tears. AI just feels too Orwellian for me ... I have this feeling that despite some areas in which it might prove useful, it is going to end very badly.
There are areas AI can do so much good. Data compilation, pattern finding. It finds disease patterns faster than humans. Can see things we can do to alleviate climate change. So many good uses. Putting soulless writing on the internet is maybe the worst thing it does
Oh, I loved to research in the library. The Dewey decimal system was my friend and I loved flicking through all those little cards to find exactly what I was looking for.
I now own far too many books ( hush my mouth!) because our local library sucks. I am never happier than when I have stacks of books open around me as I research whatever I am working on.
AI might make pretty words but in the end they are empty and soulless.
When I was a kid, the scare stories were about pocket calculators. “They will never learn how to do math!”
The kids grew up, and sure enough, they never needed to do math because they all had a calculator app in their pockets at all times.
Today’s kids who are cheating with AI writing have caught on they will never have to write as adults. They will have a writing app in their pockets at all times.
The object of scare stories change with the times. Kid cheating is universal and never as bad as people think. They just learn new skills that those before them never learned.
Kids who are cheating with AI have not caught onto the fact that learning to write isn't just about writing, it's about seeing and examining and extrapolating and communicating, which are skills they are not developing.
Writers are writers, and they will be impelled to write even as we are. Most people are not like that, and have never been. Most people are not good communicators, and have never been. So while I agree with your point about AI and creativity, I am not bothered in the least by cheating kids. That’s what kids do, and always have.
As a high school teacher, I'll share that kids--like all people--will find the path of least resistance. But! do note that not all kids cheat. Nor is it what all kids have always done. In all my time as a student, and I'm taking even through my graduate degree, I cheated once, when I was about seven years old. I got caught immediately, felt completely ashamed, and never again cheated! Cheating is wrong and that's what most kids know. They do not all cheat.
We have had companies online for years that wrote essays for students. Teachers at the secondary and tertiary levels have a good eye for these, as often, the same essays get used over and over. Cheaters get caught---by good teachers. Then, they lose their grades and/or privileges and/or membership in honorsocieties and/or get expelled from university.
So your bill is ummm, $82 pesos. You hand the cashier a $100 pesos bill and offer the $2 pesos in coins. The cashier stares at you blankly...Is this perhaps someone who never learned arithmetic?
It has been my experience that, yes, this is exactly how it goes when the machine is down. They are mostly helpless to do math in their heads. They still got the job, and no one cares that folks have forgotten to do arithmetic in their heads.
Thank you for articulating so much of what I feel too. I taught university classes a dozen years ago and was discouraged with how much plagiarism was going on, even back then before AI.
I’m dashing between a dog walk and the grocery store, but I had to sit down and read this all the way through because I felt like you were taking me by the hand and pulling me along on the way to somewhere to show me something important only I realized by the time I’d reached the last word that the destination wasn’t the point, but the being pulled along in the first place. And now I can’t wait to retrace my steps and meander off along all the tantalizing tangential paths that branched off from our race to the end - to take the hands of the other writers you mentioned and let them pull me along in their wake like the tail on a comet.
Clicked on this because the title was about AI, but it's not really about AI at all. It's about pancakes. And rhododendrons. And getting to the clearing after running with your friends. And seeing what only you can see. It's about being distinctly, beautifully, specifically human.
AI doesn't cry.
Your post was a stunning example of why a human can make me cry, and AI can't.
Isn't it funny that to sound human, we have to add typos? Makes me think of all the authors whose work get edited because it's common practice. I thought being human meant sharing our raw stories but everyone has their own definition lol.
It didn't bother me at first that people were using AI. I think what bothered me the most was that they think AI can replace every writer. That there is no need for us. Why are writers always treated like sacrificial lambs? Why do we always get dragged into these things when we're just minding our own business? Just let us write in peace.
Excellent piece Linda. Concise, smart and right on point. Enjoyed reading this very much. My contempt for AI and any art that is not humanly created knows no bounds. - Jim
Does Grammarly count as AI? When I write dialogue or fiction, I dismiss a lot of stuff because it comes out stilted. But it helps with grammar but requires watching.
Thanks for mentioning Grammarly, Tom. Twenty years ago Grammarly would have counted as "AI" — now it's just a "smart program" that makes suggestions. For every three "No!" reactions I have one "Yes, I'll do it your way" and the occasional "What? Oh crap, good catch!"
I garble my grammar on purpose, for effect.. But even repeatedly using the same AI, it can never seem to figure out my art! You know what they say -- you have to learn the rules before you can break them.
I agree. I've been a substitute teacher for four years at the high school. Gen Z. Attention span 8 seconds. Assignments on Google Classroom that take 10 to 20 minutes of 45 minute classes.
A question I've heard a lot:
"Why do we have to learn all this? If I ever need to know something, I'll Google it!"
If assignments take longer than 10 minutes, some students stop in the middle. "Too long." Multiple choice quizzes have fewer than a dozen questions.
8 seconds, remember?
It's too looooong.
I don't want to doooooo it.
I'm not going to dooooo it.
Give me a zero. I doooon't care.
AI? "Cool! I use it all the time so I don't have to do it."
I worry about these kids. Their futures. They want to be paid a lot to do short tasks. But....employers seldom assign short tasks. What will they do? Resign. Get a "better" job. Shorter hours. More money.
The craft is about the creation of diamonds, not the diamonds themselves.
The heat, the pressure, the intensity...those are the human elements that are experienced. It's the PROCESS that is human, not the PRODUCT.
As an engineer, I love the fact that AI is useful here to do the grunt work on things that we can't do at scale with massive amounts of data, but as a writer, using AI to churn out content like this is the equivalent of using a calculator to add 2 + 2.
Willful ignorance using technology as an excuse does nothing to grow you as a person. Curiosity about how things work, how things are made, the process of understanding yourself as an individual...these are not things that you want to automate for the sake of making an extra buck, but it seems like more and more people want to outsource their development, their critical thinking, and their individuality for the sake of influence and visibility.
It's like a coreless jawbreaker or Tootsie pop. It might be tasty for a short period of time but there's nothing in the center.
The term "AI" is so vague it's causing fights between a lot of people. Like AI for facial recognition where that's legal -- "classifier AI" -- is lumped in with genAI apps like chatGPT trained on pirated copyrighted works. A best friend of mine and I saw our 30-year friendship just snap in two when she was promoting chatGPT all over the place as they were being sued by major news outlets. I said you don't subscribe to a newspaper because you say that's an inefficient use of your family's time. Now you don't know why I'm mad about chatGPT because you don't ever carve time to flip through a Sunday newspaper. You're making a very good living promoting this product that's working to erode copyright law, which protects my work from being stolen by your business partners, and you say I'm being "mean" that I'm mad about that?
My husband and I were just discussing AI this morning. As a front end developer, he’s not worried about being replaced by AI because the front end requires a human eye— it’s about the user experience. And as a therapist, I know people will always want and need another person to talk to, not a bot.
Linda, it is true. AI does not have an individual soul. It is a collective of all the information and stories that it scraped from the internet. I doubt AI would make good compost. I use my ProWritingAid rephrase tool to help me break bad habits--just, but, and other ineffective writing habits. It demonstrates and approximates a writing form. It cannot create it. Those who rely on AI will never learn to think for themselves. They will defer to anything else, rather than stand on their own and accept being wrong. They will never ford the river risking the chance of drowning or claw their way to greatness.
All of us who learned to write long before the Internet and its friends ever existed are extremely grateful for that, I'm sure. I can't speak for anyone but myself...
I saw a picture someone posted of their child laying on the floor writing a story. Struck me that there have always been kids who want to write and there have always been kids who don't. One of my best writers on Medium is 15.
Hello. I am haton from Kenya .. can I get online writing please
Yes! I am so happy that I am a child of the late 70s, grew up in the 80s and 90s, and learned how to write, how to research (in a library no less) and can experience the joy of creating, truly creating, through my own blood, sweat, and tears. AI just feels too Orwellian for me ... I have this feeling that despite some areas in which it might prove useful, it is going to end very badly.
There are areas AI can do so much good. Data compilation, pattern finding. It finds disease patterns faster than humans. Can see things we can do to alleviate climate change. So many good uses. Putting soulless writing on the internet is maybe the worst thing it does
Oh, I loved to research in the library. The Dewey decimal system was my friend and I loved flicking through all those little cards to find exactly what I was looking for.
I now own far too many books ( hush my mouth!) because our local library sucks. I am never happier than when I have stacks of books open around me as I research whatever I am working on.
AI might make pretty words but in the end they are empty and soulless.
When I was a kid, the scare stories were about pocket calculators. “They will never learn how to do math!”
The kids grew up, and sure enough, they never needed to do math because they all had a calculator app in their pockets at all times.
Today’s kids who are cheating with AI writing have caught on they will never have to write as adults. They will have a writing app in their pockets at all times.
The object of scare stories change with the times. Kid cheating is universal and never as bad as people think. They just learn new skills that those before them never learned.
Kids who are cheating with AI have not caught onto the fact that learning to write isn't just about writing, it's about seeing and examining and extrapolating and communicating, which are skills they are not developing.
Writers are writers, and they will be impelled to write even as we are. Most people are not like that, and have never been. Most people are not good communicators, and have never been. So while I agree with your point about AI and creativity, I am not bothered in the least by cheating kids. That’s what kids do, and always have.
As a high school teacher, I'll share that kids--like all people--will find the path of least resistance. But! do note that not all kids cheat. Nor is it what all kids have always done. In all my time as a student, and I'm taking even through my graduate degree, I cheated once, when I was about seven years old. I got caught immediately, felt completely ashamed, and never again cheated! Cheating is wrong and that's what most kids know. They do not all cheat.
We have had companies online for years that wrote essays for students. Teachers at the secondary and tertiary levels have a good eye for these, as often, the same essays get used over and over. Cheaters get caught---by good teachers. Then, they lose their grades and/or privileges and/or membership in honorsocieties and/or get expelled from university.
Let's not normalize cheating. It's wrong.
Amen!
So your bill is ummm, $82 pesos. You hand the cashier a $100 pesos bill and offer the $2 pesos in coins. The cashier stares at you blankly...Is this perhaps someone who never learned arithmetic?
It has been my experience that, yes, this is exactly how it goes when the machine is down. They are mostly helpless to do math in their heads. They still got the job, and no one cares that folks have forgotten to do arithmetic in their heads.
Thank you for articulating so much of what I feel too. I taught university classes a dozen years ago and was discouraged with how much plagiarism was going on, even back then before AI.
The part about the rhododendrons reminded me of Richard Garvey’s song, Let Me Be An Overgrown Yard… https://youtu.be/F1WzFWwydAQ?si=lwlKEgv1vTYy4eFV
You're so right, Heather. Now AI will take the stuff they used to plagiarize and rewrite it so it passes a plagiarism detector.
I’m dashing between a dog walk and the grocery store, but I had to sit down and read this all the way through because I felt like you were taking me by the hand and pulling me along on the way to somewhere to show me something important only I realized by the time I’d reached the last word that the destination wasn’t the point, but the being pulled along in the first place. And now I can’t wait to retrace my steps and meander off along all the tantalizing tangential paths that branched off from our race to the end - to take the hands of the other writers you mentioned and let them pull me along in their wake like the tail on a comet.
Thank you.
You're very welcome, but I should be thanking you. So thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed the meander. :)
Clicked on this because the title was about AI, but it's not really about AI at all. It's about pancakes. And rhododendrons. And getting to the clearing after running with your friends. And seeing what only you can see. It's about being distinctly, beautifully, specifically human.
AI doesn't cry.
Your post was a stunning example of why a human can make me cry, and AI can't.
Yeah. It's about being beautifully human. Which we mostly are. And AI never will be. And thank you. Truly.
Isn't it funny that to sound human, we have to add typos? Makes me think of all the authors whose work get edited because it's common practice. I thought being human meant sharing our raw stories but everyone has their own definition lol.
It didn't bother me at first that people were using AI. I think what bothered me the most was that they think AI can replace every writer. That there is no need for us. Why are writers always treated like sacrificial lambs? Why do we always get dragged into these things when we're just minding our own business? Just let us write in peace.
Excellent piece Linda. Concise, smart and right on point. Enjoyed reading this very much. My contempt for AI and any art that is not humanly created knows no bounds. - Jim
"Oh, sweet summer child, you think it’s about the ideas?" I know a chat bot when I don't see it.
There are three of us left - oh, and I'm forgetting Babe Nicholson.
All I can say is Donald Trump is president.
Stories are life. Words and their applications matter. Stories generated by an algorithm will not inform a society that we can build on.
Does Grammarly count as AI? When I write dialogue or fiction, I dismiss a lot of stuff because it comes out stilted. But it helps with grammar but requires watching.
Thanks for mentioning Grammarly, Tom. Twenty years ago Grammarly would have counted as "AI" — now it's just a "smart program" that makes suggestions. For every three "No!" reactions I have one "Yes, I'll do it your way" and the occasional "What? Oh crap, good catch!"
Thanks, Jack. I'm with you on a broad "dismiss" ratio, but sometimes it's a big help.
I garble my grammar on purpose, for effect.. But even repeatedly using the same AI, it can never seem to figure out my art! You know what they say -- you have to learn the rules before you can break them.
Dialogue is beyond Grammarly, I've found. It makes my frontier gunslingers sound like British aristocrats. Thanks for the comment, Rebecca.
I agree. I've been a substitute teacher for four years at the high school. Gen Z. Attention span 8 seconds. Assignments on Google Classroom that take 10 to 20 minutes of 45 minute classes.
A question I've heard a lot:
"Why do we have to learn all this? If I ever need to know something, I'll Google it!"
If assignments take longer than 10 minutes, some students stop in the middle. "Too long." Multiple choice quizzes have fewer than a dozen questions.
8 seconds, remember?
It's too looooong.
I don't want to doooooo it.
I'm not going to dooooo it.
Give me a zero. I doooon't care.
AI? "Cool! I use it all the time so I don't have to do it."
I worry about these kids. Their futures. They want to be paid a lot to do short tasks. But....employers seldom assign short tasks. What will they do? Resign. Get a "better" job. Shorter hours. More money.
AI will be their way of life.
Not all kids, of course. But too many.
You're right, Linda.
Hugs,
Linda
The reason we scale mountains is because we know we will find rhododendron fields. Others have, and so can we.
Our little piece of paradise is in the mountains near Cloudcroft NM. I soak up serenity from the pines, firs, and aspens.
The craft is about the creation of diamonds, not the diamonds themselves.
The heat, the pressure, the intensity...those are the human elements that are experienced. It's the PROCESS that is human, not the PRODUCT.
As an engineer, I love the fact that AI is useful here to do the grunt work on things that we can't do at scale with massive amounts of data, but as a writer, using AI to churn out content like this is the equivalent of using a calculator to add 2 + 2.
Willful ignorance using technology as an excuse does nothing to grow you as a person. Curiosity about how things work, how things are made, the process of understanding yourself as an individual...these are not things that you want to automate for the sake of making an extra buck, but it seems like more and more people want to outsource their development, their critical thinking, and their individuality for the sake of influence and visibility.
It's like a coreless jawbreaker or Tootsie pop. It might be tasty for a short period of time but there's nothing in the center.
The term "AI" is so vague it's causing fights between a lot of people. Like AI for facial recognition where that's legal -- "classifier AI" -- is lumped in with genAI apps like chatGPT trained on pirated copyrighted works. A best friend of mine and I saw our 30-year friendship just snap in two when she was promoting chatGPT all over the place as they were being sued by major news outlets. I said you don't subscribe to a newspaper because you say that's an inefficient use of your family's time. Now you don't know why I'm mad about chatGPT because you don't ever carve time to flip through a Sunday newspaper. You're making a very good living promoting this product that's working to erode copyright law, which protects my work from being stolen by your business partners, and you say I'm being "mean" that I'm mad about that?
When Google's ex-CEO Eric Schmidt got so carried away he told proteges to steal IP and then have lawyers clean up the mess, people said it must be OK then. I had another tiff with a different friend last night when she was raving about chatGPT which is "free" and it's OK as her brother "works in AI" what does that mean? https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/14/24220658/google-eric-schmidt-stanford-talk-ai-startups-openai?ref=disconnect.blog
My husband and I were just discussing AI this morning. As a front end developer, he’s not worried about being replaced by AI because the front end requires a human eye— it’s about the user experience. And as a therapist, I know people will always want and need another person to talk to, not a bot.
Linda, it is true. AI does not have an individual soul. It is a collective of all the information and stories that it scraped from the internet. I doubt AI would make good compost. I use my ProWritingAid rephrase tool to help me break bad habits--just, but, and other ineffective writing habits. It demonstrates and approximates a writing form. It cannot create it. Those who rely on AI will never learn to think for themselves. They will defer to anything else, rather than stand on their own and accept being wrong. They will never ford the river risking the chance of drowning or claw their way to greatness.