AI
I find conversations about AI incredibly boring. I’m not outraged by it. I’m not excited by its possibilities. I look forward to the day when it’s just a tool, not something bringing about the end times or something guaranteed to save us all.
But there’s value in being transparent about how I use it, so here we are.
All of the posts on my website are written by me without the use of AI. All of the images are created by me or pulled from stock photo sites like Unsplash. To my knowledge, none of the stock photos are AI-generated.
My site is hosted on Micro.blog and I do have the “Use artificial intelligence” box checked. Here’s the description of that use provided by Micro.blog:
Micro.blog will use its own servers or OpenAI to process some data, to help with automatic podcast transcripts, photo summaries, search, and other features. Micro.blog will never sell your data or use it for training.
The main use I value from this is generating alt text for images. I’m just bad at it. I always review the AI-generated alt text and correct or expand it where necessary.
At work, I use MagicSchool.ai to create grade-level targeted summaries of legislation and versions of articles from outlets like Jacobin Magazine.
I used NotebookLM to help me analyze student-generated lists of books and categories of books in order to determine what I should order for the school library and how I should organize the school library.
One time, I used ChatGPT to help me draft an email to tell someone I wouldn’t be contributing a chapter to their book about research methods.
I let my kid use ChatGPT to generate weird pictures that we were never going to commission an artist to create.
I had ChatGPT write fanfiction about a wedding between Professor X and Magneto, as an exercise in demonstrating its lack of creativity. It did a very bad job.