Issue #28 A.I. Edition
And…
I’m a writer.
I wasn’t always a writer. As a kid, I was mostly busy running around the neighborhood like other kids.
My relationship with school was typical. I liked art class. I liked music class. I liked recess.
I did not like math.
I did not like English.
I most particularly did not like English.
English classes seemed to be needlessly concerned with a bunch of rules. Rules about spelling, rules about punctuation, rules about what words you could use and when you could use them. Even poetry seemed to have a bunch of rules.
Here’s a thing about “child me”.
I was unable to break rules.
I had two teacher parents. (One of them an English teacher, actually. I’m just realizing I’ll have to unpack that another time.) Rules were something you followed. I mean FOLLOWED.
So being a writer never even crossed my consciousness as something I could do. I would be too afraid I was going to screw it up somehow.
I couldn’t even keep a diary.
It made me feel silly to write down “what I did today”. First of all, I knew very well what I had done that day and none of it seemed particularly fascinating. Certainly not worth preserving for posterity. Secondly it seemed narcissistic. This was not my own thought. That bit was drilled into me by my midwestern protestant surroundings.
“Don’t think about yourself. And, for God’s sake, don’t talk about yourself. You’re not that special.”
That last one.
“You’re not that special.”
Except.
Yes I am.
So are you.
So are we all.
We are, each and every one of us, a special, unique, gifted person. With talents and passions.
Something Artificial Intelligence can never be.
No matter how hard it tries.
A.I. has no passion.
It harvests people’s passion and spits it back out.
It is a tool.
Lately, Mailchimp and my blogging platforms have begun pushing me to use A.I. writing tools.
I’m pretty offended by this.
Why, on earth (I’m leaving out several colorful expletives – a choice I can make because I am *cough* a human) would I use a computer to write for me when MY VOICE IS THE POINT?!!
I sort of understand the makers of A.I. marketing their product to businesses who would like to replace their “overpaid” writers with cheap automated labor. This is nothing new. Talk to an assembly line worker. Automation has been putting humans out of work for a long time now.
But this thing about trying to seduce writers to turn over their own voices to automation – this I don’t get.
Are they trying to save us time?
Are they telling us computers are better writers?
Whatever their game is, I ain’t playin’ it.
(For the record, Microsoft Word very much does not like the word ain’t. Or the word playin’. Microsoft Word can bite me.)
It literally, yes literally, took me decades to find my voice and even figure out I was a writer.
And a rule breaker.
I’m sure as hell not going to turn that passion off now so some robot can speak for me.
Especially since I’m pretty sure the robot has no idea how to break the rules.
Which is the most fun part.
Copyright© 2023 Anne Morse Hambrock All rights reserved.
Coincidence?
At a recent fundraiser auction for the National Cartoonists Society Foundation I won a few items from NCS days gone by. One was a program from the 1964 Reuben Award Dinner. I’ll admit I set it aside when I got home because I had a bunch of other stuff to deal with.
Then, today, AFTER I wrote the essay above, I got a hankering to look through the spoils of my bidding victory.
On page 21, I came across this incredibly prescient cartoon by Rube Goldberg.
Coincidence?
Cue Twilight Zone music…
Garden Necklace
Keep The Messages Coming!
A big “thank you” to all of you who have messaged me commented or hit “like” after reading my poems and commentary!
I appreciate the feedback and knowing how often I have struck a chord with your lives.
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