I could create a whole gallery of worst-case user failures, including my favorite new one from academia–
But we don’t need to review a whole collection to recognize that most of the blatantly obvious, groan-inducing AI failures are really a failure to adequately learn appropriate uses for a new tool set.
As always, let me be clear: AI is happening, and writers (whether professional, student, or as-part-of-business) are using it. I don’t hate or fear technology, and I’m not resistant because I’m worried AI is going to replace me one day (it won’t). I AM resistant, though, to the common notion that AI writing is faster and better and can do all the same things as well as we can–without the same significant role we’ve always played in communication.
On some level, it’s impossible to reduce that role because communicating is fundamentally connecting: two persons share contexts and information toward some kind of mutual understanding. Since an AI has only the context its user demands from it–and information it’s requested to find–writing isn’t actually easier or faster. It’s just different. And using AI appropriately requires the same learning that any new technology tool asks of us. If we simply sit back and ask this tool to do our work for us, we’re not going to accomplish our goals or actually communicate anything meaningful.
Rather than setting yourself up for public scrutiny (and perhaps ridicule) when your unedited AI text block inevitably comes up for review, consider instead how you might use AI at various stages in your writing process to help ease the steps that present you with the greatest challenges.
AI offers the same kind of potential as any new writing aid or companion–but you must develop appropriate and efficient uses of it rather than expecting it to simply replace your labor. If you need some guidance in understanding those lines, let us help you: in just five days, Appendance and Something Polished are teaming up to tackle this thorny issue. Hope to see you there.
Something Polished 