AI and my practice

How I started

A few years ago I was a teacher buried in lesson plans for a subject so specialized that little curriculum existed for it. The first day I tried AI, I had not only plans but an entire near-finished curriculum, in minutes. It blew my mind. My ADHD brain has always run ahead of my ability to capture and track everything in it, and that day I had a “collaborator” that could keep up.

The threats

The leaders of AI companies themselves talk about threats to humanity. To me, this is like a heroin dealer benefiting from overdose deaths increasing sales, perverse. We have already begun to see its impact on the future of human work, the threats data centers pose to communities and the environment, and the clear and imperative need for regulation as a check against the incomprehensible concentration of wealth and power. I have seen artists and creatives respond by simply swearing off the tech or anyone who uses it. I understand and share the inclination, but to me, this is like burying my head in the sand.

Virtually any new technology that has reshaped society has caused such a backlash. In the 1810s, English textile workers known as Luddites smashed the machines that were taking their jobs, and their name still stands for anyone who resists new technology. In 1906, the composer John Philip Sousa warned in his essay “The Menace of Mechanical Music” that recordings would ruin musicianship; today, recording is how most musicians make and share their work. Yes, such a response is understandable, and yes, this technology is different than past technologies.

The promise

Still, in equal measure to the threats, I see its massive promise, for science, medicine and innovation. The AI coin unquestionably has two sides.

My approach to AI, borrowing from Stephen Covey, has always been to seek first to understand, rather than react out of fear; and to ask where I can make a real, practical difference in people’s lives. I’ll keep using AI to the extent that it’s healthy and helpful toward how I try to live: with gratitude, making the most of each day by way of kindness and compassion toward the people around me, and life on Earth.

How I use it

In my work, that translates to AI being a force multiplier and a hugely important support for how my brain works, never a replacement for my thinking, decisions, taste, writing or judgment. It handles the grunt-work, and using plain language I’ve done things I once lacked the technical know-how to do: a custom tool that runs my calendar, email, tasks and projects; recovered and digitized archives of my own work; built websites, apps and also tools for cutting and fixing audio and video.

How I check it

Helpful as AI is, decisions belong to me and the client, not AI. AI makes real mistakes. It states things that aren’t true with total confidence and fills gaps with made-up details, though less so every day as the technology improves before our eyes.

So, every draft is checked against the facts and the job scope and reworked until it’s right, and I stand behind everything that goes out under my name. I treat recordings with the same care. I record meetings and calls so I don’t miss anything, and I say so before we start, every time. If a client would rather I didn’t, I don’t. Recordings are for my notes only, never shared, and deleted upon client request. What a client shares with me gets the care I’d want for my own work.