Features and blogging

I had a thought the other day, while carrying out a spot of research using a popular chatsite [starts with C, French name, that’s all you’re getting].
AI is now so well-established – for work and play – but I think some of us should still be questioning how and why we use it.
I’ve seen it put to brilliant and fun use within the digital arts, and in other areas where an AI tool is a reasonable thing to bring in.
But for those of us whose work could be seen as replaceable by machines, we need to be careful. The greater the need, the more AI controls, and the more our integrity is put to the test. We should all be questioning its relevance, its accuracy. We should be asking questions about how much energy it uses, and wondering if the rush to use it for writing and research has overlooked (or left behind) a vital understanding of what might have gone into a more natural thought process behind our projects. What do we need it for, and is it really better for us?
Oh but you know, then we go ahead and use it anyway, because look at the time, and look at that in-tray, and look (or imagine) how tired our brains are. It's undeniably useful, isn’t it? And it’s not always a bad thing, I use it too – of course I do. But not for writing. And not without thinking, every single time I click on a search box, about:
• how the world has now been provided with the biggest-ever cheat sheet.
• how no one ever has to live in fear of the blank page.
• how letters and blogs might one day become so impersonal that we forget why we’re writing or posting.
• how one day, schools might lose libraries and writing tasks, as students drive the AI bus straight through the doors of the examination hall.
I do use it, yes. If I want to research something, then AI is helpful. And if I want a framework for something I’ve not done before, also helpful. But for inspiration, creativity, dreaming up stories? That’s a hard and absolute NO. To this end, I have a few self-set rules in place to avoid going down mechanical rabbit holes.
On my current MA course, I use a pen and a notebook for sketching out assignments and taking notes. The distance a pen puts between you and your brain (instead of a keyboard) allows for valuable thinking time. I know, you don’t all have the time, but consider bringing in handwriting for at least some areas of your work.
For my work, I won’t use AI to write content. Creatively, I don’t use AI when I write my short stories and poems and little snippets of flash fiction. I was born with a brain, and I enjoy flexing that muscle. I also need to sound like me, not some generic robot. My writing should never come from an under-counter trawl through the archives, from a rifle through a virtual shopping bag of random robotic thoughts.
My words are handmade, hand-picked, organic, self-seeding, with the bonus of no sell-by date and not the slightest whiff of machine.
I mean, ask me again in a year, you never know, everything is moving so fast. But I bet/hope/wish my response will be just the same.