AI And Blogging

I'm writing more than ever these days, but blogging and posting to X less than ever. AI (read: ChatGPT) is eating all of my content.

The subtitle on this blog is "Working through my ignorance with your help" and that's exactly what I'm doing with AI. I'm a fast typist so I can go down all manner of rabbit holes with the thing. I work at my computer most of the day and there's always one or more AI tabs open with various conversations going. These may include fiction, alternate history, programming, cultural analysis, politics, economics, art or comedy.

When it occurred to me that I'm essentially blogging to a robot audience, I wondered if it was because my scattershot brain gets the perfect feedback from AI. No matter what the topic might be, it will go as deep into the subject as I want. It also never gets bored or irritated with my ranting.

This isn't a good thing. The more people do this, the less we will share with each other and that sharing has all manner of benefits above and beyond simply thrashing out ideas.

I've thought about posting summaries of whatever topic I'm currently exploring here, but it wouldn't be me writing, it would be AI summarizing our discussion for me. I'd just cut and paste.

Is that creative? The topic and the direction of the conversation are still mine, but the output is not. Is AI just a tool like a canvas, brush and paint? Am I balking at the thought that I'm not generating content from scratch when, in fact, I'm still generating ideas and evolving them into something I like?

That's still creative, right? Is AI just a prose and art factory for me? Have I evolved from a writer to a content engineer and architect?

It's kind of a steampunk blogging machine.

If it is a tool and not a crutch or a cheat, then the issue is not where the prose is generated, it's whether or not I've used AI to generate something interesting enough to share.

Thinking out loud here, where this blog post is 100% organic and sustainable, containing no AI content, I think that's the real question. If I spend a decent amount of time and thought working through an idea with AI, then it might be even better to share that than it would be to share my typical half-baked rantings.

I think I'll give that a try.