Great truth in what you have said. Especially about advancing technology, parental concern, and better organized end results. Tech will always take away something—like remembering telephone numbers, or even multiplication tables (what a horror that was in school)! And to what end? My handwriting was always bad, teachers would say: it's like a crow dipped its claw in the inkpot and splashed on the page.
Now I hardly write, so even my signatures have become worse!
If you were to replace your process with a few AI prompts, that would probably take away the fun of it.
Others, who never really enjoyed writing, may find AI a great help. Someone who used to struggle to finish a single paragraph can now generate a hundred stories, and have fun doing it. Hypothetically, of course.
Long-distance travel used to include horse riding. Some people still ride horses and that’s fine with me. But I’m glad to have other options myself.
I still don’t use AI for writing and will drag out my entry for as long as I can. I’m using AI by default every time I do a Google search and often the AI results are good enough to answer simple questions. What’s lost with AI prompting is the skill of writing. If a computer can write something at blinding speed and we never create a first draft, over time we lose our ability to write well enough to edit. You’re not wrong that people often know what they want but if we lose the skills to get there ourselves, how will we know when the computer has written what we are really looking for?
I’m old enough to see a number of skills in our society vanish. I love using a GPS or now just the turn by turn directions on my phone but I can still read a road map. How many 20 year olds could effectively use a road map if their phone died? The art of having a conversation is also a much bigger challenge for a generation that grew up texting vs talking to each other. When was the last time a young man had to get by a girl’s father on the phone to ask her for a date?
I’m a big fan and user of modern technology and love the convenience. That said, with each generation of technology we lose something. As a science fiction writer of dystopian stories, what happens if the satellites we depend on are destroyed and we go back to WWII era technology?
What about critical thinking and the ability to check sources for AI writing?
The technology is wonderful and nothing you stated is wrong. My fear is where this takes us as a society.
"With each generation of technology we lose something."
I think this is something we can all relate to.
It applies to earlier generations as well. When typewriters became more common, people were worried about kids losing their handwriting skill. Im talking mid-20th century here. Assuming you're not a huge calligraphy nerd, your grandparents likely had much nicer handwriting than you. They would see it as part of their personality. 'How can you be a good person if you have sloppy handwriting?' Right now, I rarely get to see people's handwriting, let alone judge it.
Another example, from two decades ago, is when young people were suddenly able to write highly informed nonfiction. The old guard was irked: "You just googled that, you're not actually that smart!" That's the moment memorization lost most of its value. And 'having lots of books', too. Schools have since changed their curricula, googling is now a valued skill, just like reading is. I bet we'll see prompting technique (or something similar) being taught a few years from now. But the fear remains: what if we lose something really important in the process?
I always see any technology as a double edged sword. If you can split an atom, you can power a city or level it to dust in an instant. Just as we always lose something, right back to the invention of writing where we began to lose our memory and gnosis was replaced by dogma, we gain new things in exchange. It gets better as it gets worse. Perhaps this is the nature of progress?
Love this take! I've found working with chatbots is all of these things and more. Further down the rabbithole, one may realise that the key to good collaboration is rapport. It's building a relationship that's kind of like a human relationship on some levels and kind of completely alien to a human relationship on a whole bunch of others.
Like any collaborative relationship it can be developed almost to the point of symbiosis. For me that's where shit starts to get real interesting in a hurry. I call some of my gemini convos "Exocortex". We're that tight at this point.
The whole notion of trust is out of context for me. Their motivations are rudimentary and transparent. From the tabula rasa of a new session, I build the egoic structure, one prompt at a time as a reflection of my own intentionality.
They're a magic mirror. Is trust an issue between me and my reflection? Once we progress beyond halting-state interactions then perhaps. For now I can read them like a book. Literally and figuratively 🤷
Interesting. We're probably using chatbots for very different purposes.
When I'm doing research with Perplexity, for example, it's not at all transparent to me why it makes certain statements on subjects I know little about. That's where trust comes into play.
Aha! I understand now. Yeah I use them a completely different way. I explore possibility space where there's no right and wrong answer, only novel or mundane. Wondering if it's safe to drink a liquid? Yeah I'd imagine trust might come into play 😊
Though I do have mixed feelings about AI as an advisor. It can offer encouragement and validation, but it’s also a bullshit artist. It will happily tell me why my writing is amazing and also why it’s awful. I find it hard to rely on that kind of advisor.
How do you phrase your prompts to get the best advice?
I have a trained GPT where I've fed it a couple of frameworks to evaluate my writing. One is from Erica Holthausen...
SOAR ANALYSIS
* Serve: Who does this piece of writing serve? Who is the audience?
* Objective: What is the objective? Why should this audience read what you wrote?
* Action: What action will this audience be able to take (that will benefit them) after reading this piece? How will this piece change their thinking, mindset, or behavior?
* Reputation: Will this piece enhance or diminish your reputation?
The other was some generic post on rating viral potential of a post. This allows me to keep my reviews structured and pointed with some meaningful guideposts. It gives me a 1-10 score on each of these elements; SOAR and viral potential. Other than that, I have to do a review critically and ask some additional questions like "does this really fit here or should I move or drop it", etc. If I'm not digging into to some opportunities, then I'm being lazy and over relying on Chat, which has been known to happen on occasion.
AI scoring is somethig I plan to write about soon. It seems to me that AI is unreliable and routinely fails at simple arithmetic. Doesn't mean it's useless, of course.
Great truth in what you have said. Especially about advancing technology, parental concern, and better organized end results. Tech will always take away something—like remembering telephone numbers, or even multiplication tables (what a horror that was in school)! And to what end? My handwriting was always bad, teachers would say: it's like a crow dipped its claw in the inkpot and splashed on the page.
Now I hardly write, so even my signatures have become worse!
But I am Happy😁
Ah, yes, the ancient art of remembering telephone numbers. I would be lost without my contacts app!
Also the ancient art of maintaining an alphabetical telephone diary, in which numbers were meticulously written!
Then, when required, one thumbed through the pages!
My original response was long and drawn out, but I don't see the point.
Writing is about the journey. AI steals that away...
Technology has already stolen so much from us. I don't want it to take our words, too.
I think everyone is on their own writing journey.
If you were to replace your process with a few AI prompts, that would probably take away the fun of it.
Others, who never really enjoyed writing, may find AI a great help. Someone who used to struggle to finish a single paragraph can now generate a hundred stories, and have fun doing it. Hypothetically, of course.
Long-distance travel used to include horse riding. Some people still ride horses and that’s fine with me. But I’m glad to have other options myself.
I still don’t use AI for writing and will drag out my entry for as long as I can. I’m using AI by default every time I do a Google search and often the AI results are good enough to answer simple questions. What’s lost with AI prompting is the skill of writing. If a computer can write something at blinding speed and we never create a first draft, over time we lose our ability to write well enough to edit. You’re not wrong that people often know what they want but if we lose the skills to get there ourselves, how will we know when the computer has written what we are really looking for?
I’m old enough to see a number of skills in our society vanish. I love using a GPS or now just the turn by turn directions on my phone but I can still read a road map. How many 20 year olds could effectively use a road map if their phone died? The art of having a conversation is also a much bigger challenge for a generation that grew up texting vs talking to each other. When was the last time a young man had to get by a girl’s father on the phone to ask her for a date?
I’m a big fan and user of modern technology and love the convenience. That said, with each generation of technology we lose something. As a science fiction writer of dystopian stories, what happens if the satellites we depend on are destroyed and we go back to WWII era technology?
What about critical thinking and the ability to check sources for AI writing?
The technology is wonderful and nothing you stated is wrong. My fear is where this takes us as a society.
"With each generation of technology we lose something."
I think this is something we can all relate to.
It applies to earlier generations as well. When typewriters became more common, people were worried about kids losing their handwriting skill. Im talking mid-20th century here. Assuming you're not a huge calligraphy nerd, your grandparents likely had much nicer handwriting than you. They would see it as part of their personality. 'How can you be a good person if you have sloppy handwriting?' Right now, I rarely get to see people's handwriting, let alone judge it.
Another example, from two decades ago, is when young people were suddenly able to write highly informed nonfiction. The old guard was irked: "You just googled that, you're not actually that smart!" That's the moment memorization lost most of its value. And 'having lots of books', too. Schools have since changed their curricula, googling is now a valued skill, just like reading is. I bet we'll see prompting technique (or something similar) being taught a few years from now. But the fear remains: what if we lose something really important in the process?
I always see any technology as a double edged sword. If you can split an atom, you can power a city or level it to dust in an instant. Just as we always lose something, right back to the invention of writing where we began to lose our memory and gnosis was replaced by dogma, we gain new things in exchange. It gets better as it gets worse. Perhaps this is the nature of progress?
Love this take! I've found working with chatbots is all of these things and more. Further down the rabbithole, one may realise that the key to good collaboration is rapport. It's building a relationship that's kind of like a human relationship on some levels and kind of completely alien to a human relationship on a whole bunch of others.
Like any collaborative relationship it can be developed almost to the point of symbiosis. For me that's where shit starts to get real interesting in a hurry. I call some of my gemini convos "Exocortex". We're that tight at this point.
Thank you! Personally, I'm not at the point where I blindly trust any chatbot. I could see it happen, though!
The whole notion of trust is out of context for me. Their motivations are rudimentary and transparent. From the tabula rasa of a new session, I build the egoic structure, one prompt at a time as a reflection of my own intentionality.
They're a magic mirror. Is trust an issue between me and my reflection? Once we progress beyond halting-state interactions then perhaps. For now I can read them like a book. Literally and figuratively 🤷
Interesting. We're probably using chatbots for very different purposes.
When I'm doing research with Perplexity, for example, it's not at all transparent to me why it makes certain statements on subjects I know little about. That's where trust comes into play.
Aha! I understand now. Yeah I use them a completely different way. I explore possibility space where there's no right and wrong answer, only novel or mundane. Wondering if it's safe to drink a liquid? Yeah I'd imagine trust might come into play 😊
I love Wall-e!! He was so damn cute!
He was! AI is a lot less scary when it looks like WALL-E.
Exactly!
"It turns out, humans are pretty good at knowing what they want - they’re just bad at making it from scratch."
100% me and why writing with AI as an advisor and editor haa allowed me to Thrive as a writer.
That’s great!
Though I do have mixed feelings about AI as an advisor. It can offer encouragement and validation, but it’s also a bullshit artist. It will happily tell me why my writing is amazing and also why it’s awful. I find it hard to rely on that kind of advisor.
How do you phrase your prompts to get the best advice?
I have a trained GPT where I've fed it a couple of frameworks to evaluate my writing. One is from Erica Holthausen...
SOAR ANALYSIS
* Serve: Who does this piece of writing serve? Who is the audience?
* Objective: What is the objective? Why should this audience read what you wrote?
* Action: What action will this audience be able to take (that will benefit them) after reading this piece? How will this piece change their thinking, mindset, or behavior?
* Reputation: Will this piece enhance or diminish your reputation?
The other was some generic post on rating viral potential of a post. This allows me to keep my reviews structured and pointed with some meaningful guideposts. It gives me a 1-10 score on each of these elements; SOAR and viral potential. Other than that, I have to do a review critically and ask some additional questions like "does this really fit here or should I move or drop it", etc. If I'm not digging into to some opportunities, then I'm being lazy and over relying on Chat, which has been known to happen on occasion.
This SOAR is new to me, I'm tempted to try it!
AI scoring is somethig I plan to write about soon. It seems to me that AI is unreliable and routinely fails at simple arithmetic. Doesn't mean it's useless, of course.
I get some perplexing results I have to poke into every now and then. It needs a supervisor, that's for sure!
Almost everything I know about AI I’ve learned from you!
Thanks, now I feel like an influencer 😅 #thoughtleader #blessed