Monday Musings: My Relationship With AI

I’ve been on Claude for some three hours now, trying to crack the code when it comes to Project Vanity content. I asked it to make a content calendar. I had it write out some essays, which sounded ok, but ultimately I decided to just write this myself. Everything that came out of it was almost there - but it just didn’t seem right. Sure it’s ok for getting something that’s more heavy on information, but not for thoughtful essays like this one for the column.

I have a love-hate relationship with AI tools. I love that I can have good output and insights within just a few minutes; it saves me time and money as an entrepreneur. I don’t need to hire consultants and freelancers as much anymore; I want to, and I do as often as I can because it really is better to be working with flesh and blood creatives - but my budget is limited. I sadly can’t afford to hire everyone all the time, so AI helps with some of the gaps. It feels like I’m living in the future every time I have a conversation with Claude or ChatGPT.

On the other hand, AI while mimicking a really smart person is still not a person. There are still limits to what it can do, one of which is that much of the output is still obviously AI-generated. A talented prompter can do some amazing things, sure, but if you’re a real writer and/or a meticulous reader then you would likely know when something is AI even when it’s good. “Too good” is a dead giveaway.

These days I’ve been thinking about how eloquence is no longer the marker for a good piece of writing. Authenticity is. There has to be a real gem of feeling in the creative work, or it feels empty. It’s well-written, but it’s a building with a pretty facade and no furniture inside the walls. These days I would rather read something messy - you know, wrong grammar, disorganized thoughts - than something overly polished. But that’s just me.

I’ve been reflecting on why I write lately. It’s a whole different thing which I will talk about next time, but let me leave a thought: why skip the messy part of writing, when the mess is the point? I’ve been reading Rumi’s poems and that dude is all over the place when it comes to constructing his verses and arriving at conclusions. But his brilliant writings continue to shine through the ages even after almost 800 years. In the book, the curator commented that we should think of Rumi’s poems not as a well-manicured Persian garden, but as a woven tapestry with all manner of things added to it on impulse. Why not do that?

I’m not a troglodyte; AI is a part of my - our - life now. But we should use it to enrich our creative life, not flatten it.