How We Use AI
The short of it is. We never use AI for any of our writing, ever. But we do use it as a publisher.
What does this mean?
The great comedian Mitch Hedberg once said "When you're in Hollywood and you're a comedian, everybody wants you to do other things. All right, you're a stand up comedian, can you write us a script? That's not fair. That's like if I worked hard to become a cook, and I'm a really good cook, they'd say, "OK, you're a cook. Can you farm?"
Being a writer today means also being an entrepreneur. As a parent with no time, I—and by extension, this publication—employs AI to assist with tasks that do not involve actual writing. At a larger publication, or one not run by some AI hyper evangelist, these jobs would typically be done by humans. This includes:
Our logo was made by Gemini. (At some point, a graphic designer will be paid to upgrade our logo)
Images for our early posts were made by Gemini, although we recently have moved away from AI images
Certain aspects of building the Millennial Dad Journal website were completed by AI. This is because Beehiiv, the host of this newsletter and website, makes it difficult to manually complete certain tasks without relying on their AI chat thing.
Gemini is being used as a "better google" to research and develop marketing strategies on how to build and grow the newsletter
Gemini is also used as a research assistant for certain articles that require internet fact-finding. Sometimes, plain old google is better at these missions.
You may be wondering: why am I telling you this?
This endeavor is a deeply human one. I believe that the biggest threat to AI, beyond the potential joblessness and subsequent worldwide rebellion; beyond the world being controlled by 14 tech oligarchs; and beyond all of us becoming some sort of chip implanted cyborgs, is our ability to preserve our unique selves as thinking, intentional, and capable beings.
While I am intrigued by AI as a highly useful tool, I think employing AI beyond anything that would have previously been the domain of google is an extremely dangerous game. While none of us can individually control the Icarus-esque inertia of AI development, we do have the power to make individual choices. As technology progresses to the point of threatening human cognition, it seems more and more important to draw lines in the sand.
Thus, while we do not fully meet the standards of the emerging Writers Against AI campaign, we are fundamentally aligned with it, and all of our decisions regarding AI going forward will be deliberately human-centric.
Thanks for listening. Would you like me to create a summary of this post? (I'm kidding).
-Lance