I’ll be honest with you, I don’t love the idea of artificial intelligence. There are many things about it I don’t like. Even the basic premise, that this technology is intelligent doesn’t match my definition of the term. Real intelligence requires more than connecting a bunch of data points. Sure, it can create things from scratch, and it’s great at recognizing and replicating patterns. But is that creativity, or can we consider that thinking? I don’t believe it is. And yes, believe is the word I meant to use. Because the definition of these terms — intelligence, creativity, thinking — is somewhat subjective.

Aside: I know these words have clear definitions and meanings. But some words can’t be perfectly described. Don’t worry, I won’t get into my philosophy of semiotics here. Back to the main topic!

So yes, I generally dislike AI. You can read all about the environmental concerns, ethical issues, and potential apocalyptic consequences elsewhere.

The reality is, AI is unavoidable now. And — as a digital designer — it’s (part of) my job to keep up with it.

One of the ways I’ve been experimenting, is collaborating on posts here. I used some of my older posts to train an LLM assistant (I used Claude, but I believe they are all pretty much interchangeable when it comes to this). It did a decent job at capturing my voice and tone. Which, I have to admit, was a bit unsettling and cringe-worthy. It’s like looking back at older work. Except AI tends to amplify things, which makes the way the assistant writes almost a caricature of my style.

One of the things it learned about me is that I often start with a musing or by asking the reader a question. Which is true, but … Actually, hold that thought. I’ll get back to it.

After my robot friend — JK, it’s a bunch of 1s and 0s, not a friend — had learned to write in my voice, I gave it an outline for the Dreamjob: Parkhill Orchard Farmer post. The results weren’t terrible but definitely needed editing. I tried to only do a light edit because I wanted to use it as an example of my experimenting.

If you read the post, you might notice how often my AI assistant and I ask the reader a question. I’d like to think I’m less heavy-handed with that stylistic technique. It also amplified and over-used some of my other signature moves. It’s hard for me to judge how easy it is for someone to notice that the writing isn’t 100% mine. I would hope you notice, but I’m afraid you might not.

TLDR: AI is helpful, and can already save time and effort. And because of the way it works, it’ll continue to get better. I worry that it’ll always stay somewhat formulaic though. Is it intelligent? Or can it be trusted to work on its own? I don’t yet think so, and I’m not sure we’ll ever get there. If we do, we’ll have bigger things to worry about. Our intelligence is what put us at the top of the food chain. Guess who will take our spot once it's able to outthink us.

PS: I did not co-write this post with AI. So far I’ve only used it for the Dreamjob postings. For transparency, AI experiments are tagged with the AI-assist tag.