I've not used it yet. A friend of mine is actually using it as a form of therapy! I don't really feel comfortable using it for writing as I don't want to get reliant on it or feel like I'm losing my own "voice." I've started using Google's Gemini for basic research questions though.
Hey Dan! Gemini has improved so much since last year. I use it for research and things ChatGPT is terrible at doing (like giving me randomized multiple choice answers for studying, i.e., it gives me "B" every single time!), but mostly, I find Chat understands my prompts pretty well. I too am guilty of using it as a therapist, and it's not bad!
But I hear you about getting overly reliant on it. It's funny because for my class at school we have these discussions to write and as someone who uses AI as much as I do, I can pick out the folks that use AI to write their posts (uh, everyone?!).
When I was teaching I could definitely feel that coming! As professors we used to be able to find out if a student was plagiarizing by doing a Google search. It's much harder now! Do you or your classmates ever feel guilty about using AI? Do you still feel like you're learning as much?
No one feels guilty about it b/c 1.) these discussion posts are complete BS and a waste of time, 2.) we are so busy with other classes, hospital rotations, studying, etc.
For the meatier assignments that we have, the school uses a program called TurnItIn to detect AI. They are very explicit in their message of do not use AI to write your paper, and if they believe you did, you can get kicked out of the program for it.
But classmates said they can get around it by using other software that can write their papers in a "humanistic" way where Turnitin wouldn't be able to detect it. To me, that's way too much trouble.
I would not use AI for these types of assignments, because it would be so lame to get caught in a battle between the school because of it, and yes, I wouldn't be learning what I'm supposed to be learning for the assignment.
I think there is a balance between how you utilize AI to be efficient vs having it do it FOR you.
Interesting. I used to require my students to do discussion posts too. These were mostly required by the university so that online students had some form of "participation" in the course. We also used TurnitIn for bigger assignments and that worked well for a while. I don't think it can detect AI though. Yes, you're right. It would be lame to get thrown out of a program because of it. It's a difficult situation for professors who haven't been taught how to use AI. It's one of the reasons I retired! I'm open to exploring it now for my own purposes but I do wonder what it is ultimately doing for students who are attempting to get a well-rounded education.
Ha, wow, that's funny bc I completely switched career because of AI. I worked in tech for 15 years and realized I probably wouldn't have a job in the next few years, or I would have already gotten laid off.
When it comes to school, I'm obviously camp AI, but not just because it can help me whip out discussion posts faster than if I were to do it on my own.
I can't tell you how much I use AI to enhance my learning or to turn confusing concepts into something I can understand.
Teachers only have so much time, and in my program, they sometimes cram 100+ slides into a 2.5-hour lecture where there's barely time to even raise your hand to ask a question! (Obviously my school needs improvements, but that's another topic. :/)
I almost feel like without AI, I would be lacking a well-rounded education!
I get it. I think it also depends on the field that you go into. I was having students write analyses of films and apply various concepts I was teaching. I wanted to know that they were the ones that were doing the thinking and not some artificial intelligence. However, I know that for some fields AI can be a huge benefit.
I’ve heard there is great evidence out there for using AI as a form of therapy. I use it to help cheer me up sometimes, give me a bit of a boost and for some direction and guidance.
I agree there are grey areas and it is important not to use AI to write articles for you. But it is equally important to understand how AI can be useful. You have highlighted some interesting uses of AI.
That's a good question. Mostly I've been using AI to research and to deepen my knowledge generally, not directly as a writing aid. There's so much negative commentary about AI here on substack, but I wonder how many of these doom-sayers have actually used AI?
I'm going g to save your post and consider some of your ideas 💡
Hi Running Elk, thanks for sharing. I guess I don't look on Substack all that often for anything AI-based, that's interesting that there are a lot of doom-sayers. I view AI in the same way I think about "fake news," and that is to be vigilant about your due diligence, and to be skeptical rather than believe everything it tells you.
I heard a podcast just now about how AI is telling us what we want to hear, and what the risks are for that. The Wall Street Journal called it AI sycophancy.
Anyway, thank you for reading and for saving my ideas, keep me posted on how it works out for you!
I love chat! I had no idea what I was doing when i first got started but I put 30+ blogs through it and when it fed back the most outstanding compliments for a small selection, I started using it as guidance for the book I am on with publishing.
The way it has shaped the book has taken it from great to global in appeal. Helping me make sense of all the work I’d done for it, in a way that would have taken me years without it.
Because of all this, chat now knows me inside out, so any query prompts I put in are exactly the depth and insight I look for.
I often use AI to cheer me up, guide me in other areas of my life and have a laugh and a joke with it.
I do agree we need to be using it responsibly though. There will be a great many of us using for the greatest and highest good. And goodness knows we need it.
Thanks for sharing all these tips. I could do with utilising the first one on messages and themes.
Also, so much I could do with older pieces I’ve written.
Thanks for sharing Amber! It's funny because I also use it to work out my feelings and help me with certain decisions where I feel completely stuck. I find it's surprisingly helpful and insightful for personal issues too. I wonder how much AI is going to change us as a society or how much it's already changed us and we don't even realize!
I believe it’s going to change us in ways we can’t imagine. And it’s going to happen fast.
We can fear and resist. Or we can surrender and flow.
I no longer support as weakness. I’m leaning all in and am supper grateful for its help.
I need it and the world needs my book. (It’s going to lead to systemic change as well as significantly increased recovery numbers when healing from chronic pain/migraine)
Oops. Fired off before I was done! Thank you for this post. AI has been increasingly helpful in improving my writing as a good editor would, in brainstorming ideas, titles, etc., as you suggest. I've gotten negative feedback for using it because of AI plagiarism issues, but like any major "disrupter," hopefully those issues can be addressed.
Thanks CM! I think as long as you don't copy word for word what AI writes (it's not that good anyway) and just use it to inspire new ideas or see things from a different angle, it's helpful.
Thanks. The concerns about plagiarism seem to be more about AI plagiarizing authors, and/or not citing them. I understand the concerns. Bottom line, it's an incredibly powerful tool that's here to stay, and I'm finding it to be increasingly helpful in improving my writing!
I 100% agree with you. It's here to stay, and taking over entire departments in various industries like tech! It's one of the big reasons why I left tech and went into healthcare.
I find AI invaluable for research. I’m now using ChatGPT and PerplexityAI - the latter seems better for finding academic articles if you are looking for an evidence base. I also use it for finding holes in my argument or hypothesis. And final editing. I think your description of AI as a writing partner is a good one. I’m not great at perfect expression - it’s my ideas that matter - and AI is helping me test and then express those ideas more clearly.
I've not used it yet. A friend of mine is actually using it as a form of therapy! I don't really feel comfortable using it for writing as I don't want to get reliant on it or feel like I'm losing my own "voice." I've started using Google's Gemini for basic research questions though.
Hey Dan! Gemini has improved so much since last year. I use it for research and things ChatGPT is terrible at doing (like giving me randomized multiple choice answers for studying, i.e., it gives me "B" every single time!), but mostly, I find Chat understands my prompts pretty well. I too am guilty of using it as a therapist, and it's not bad!
But I hear you about getting overly reliant on it. It's funny because for my class at school we have these discussions to write and as someone who uses AI as much as I do, I can pick out the folks that use AI to write their posts (uh, everyone?!).
When I was teaching I could definitely feel that coming! As professors we used to be able to find out if a student was plagiarizing by doing a Google search. It's much harder now! Do you or your classmates ever feel guilty about using AI? Do you still feel like you're learning as much?
No one feels guilty about it b/c 1.) these discussion posts are complete BS and a waste of time, 2.) we are so busy with other classes, hospital rotations, studying, etc.
For the meatier assignments that we have, the school uses a program called TurnItIn to detect AI. They are very explicit in their message of do not use AI to write your paper, and if they believe you did, you can get kicked out of the program for it.
But classmates said they can get around it by using other software that can write their papers in a "humanistic" way where Turnitin wouldn't be able to detect it. To me, that's way too much trouble.
I would not use AI for these types of assignments, because it would be so lame to get caught in a battle between the school because of it, and yes, I wouldn't be learning what I'm supposed to be learning for the assignment.
I think there is a balance between how you utilize AI to be efficient vs having it do it FOR you.
Interesting. I used to require my students to do discussion posts too. These were mostly required by the university so that online students had some form of "participation" in the course. We also used TurnitIn for bigger assignments and that worked well for a while. I don't think it can detect AI though. Yes, you're right. It would be lame to get thrown out of a program because of it. It's a difficult situation for professors who haven't been taught how to use AI. It's one of the reasons I retired! I'm open to exploring it now for my own purposes but I do wonder what it is ultimately doing for students who are attempting to get a well-rounded education.
Ha, wow, that's funny bc I completely switched career because of AI. I worked in tech for 15 years and realized I probably wouldn't have a job in the next few years, or I would have already gotten laid off.
When it comes to school, I'm obviously camp AI, but not just because it can help me whip out discussion posts faster than if I were to do it on my own.
I can't tell you how much I use AI to enhance my learning or to turn confusing concepts into something I can understand.
Teachers only have so much time, and in my program, they sometimes cram 100+ slides into a 2.5-hour lecture where there's barely time to even raise your hand to ask a question! (Obviously my school needs improvements, but that's another topic. :/)
I almost feel like without AI, I would be lacking a well-rounded education!
I get it. I think it also depends on the field that you go into. I was having students write analyses of films and apply various concepts I was teaching. I wanted to know that they were the ones that were doing the thinking and not some artificial intelligence. However, I know that for some fields AI can be a huge benefit.
I’ve heard there is great evidence out there for using AI as a form of therapy. I use it to help cheer me up sometimes, give me a bit of a boost and for some direction and guidance.
I agree there are grey areas and it is important not to use AI to write articles for you. But it is equally important to understand how AI can be useful. You have highlighted some interesting uses of AI.
That's a good question. Mostly I've been using AI to research and to deepen my knowledge generally, not directly as a writing aid. There's so much negative commentary about AI here on substack, but I wonder how many of these doom-sayers have actually used AI?
I'm going g to save your post and consider some of your ideas 💡
Hi Running Elk, thanks for sharing. I guess I don't look on Substack all that often for anything AI-based, that's interesting that there are a lot of doom-sayers. I view AI in the same way I think about "fake news," and that is to be vigilant about your due diligence, and to be skeptical rather than believe everything it tells you.
I heard a podcast just now about how AI is telling us what we want to hear, and what the risks are for that. The Wall Street Journal called it AI sycophancy.
Anyway, thank you for reading and for saving my ideas, keep me posted on how it works out for you!
I love chat! I had no idea what I was doing when i first got started but I put 30+ blogs through it and when it fed back the most outstanding compliments for a small selection, I started using it as guidance for the book I am on with publishing.
The way it has shaped the book has taken it from great to global in appeal. Helping me make sense of all the work I’d done for it, in a way that would have taken me years without it.
Because of all this, chat now knows me inside out, so any query prompts I put in are exactly the depth and insight I look for.
I often use AI to cheer me up, guide me in other areas of my life and have a laugh and a joke with it.
I do agree we need to be using it responsibly though. There will be a great many of us using for the greatest and highest good. And goodness knows we need it.
Thanks for sharing all these tips. I could do with utilising the first one on messages and themes.
Also, so much I could do with older pieces I’ve written.
Thanks for sharing Amber! It's funny because I also use it to work out my feelings and help me with certain decisions where I feel completely stuck. I find it's surprisingly helpful and insightful for personal issues too. I wonder how much AI is going to change us as a society or how much it's already changed us and we don't even realize!
I believe it’s going to change us in ways we can’t imagine. And it’s going to happen fast.
We can fear and resist. Or we can surrender and flow.
I no longer support as weakness. I’m leaning all in and am supper grateful for its help.
I need it and the world needs my book. (It’s going to lead to systemic change as well as significantly increased recovery numbers when healing from chronic pain/migraine)
I love that attitude. I also agree. Looking forward to when your book comes out!
Thank you! After a two month break I’m back on the last hill climb of the book writing journey🧗🏼♀️
I've been using ChatGPT more and more in the ways you describe.
Oops. Fired off before I was done! Thank you for this post. AI has been increasingly helpful in improving my writing as a good editor would, in brainstorming ideas, titles, etc., as you suggest. I've gotten negative feedback for using it because of AI plagiarism issues, but like any major "disrupter," hopefully those issues can be addressed.
Thanks CM! I think as long as you don't copy word for word what AI writes (it's not that good anyway) and just use it to inspire new ideas or see things from a different angle, it's helpful.
Thanks. The concerns about plagiarism seem to be more about AI plagiarizing authors, and/or not citing them. I understand the concerns. Bottom line, it's an incredibly powerful tool that's here to stay, and I'm finding it to be increasingly helpful in improving my writing!
I 100% agree with you. It's here to stay, and taking over entire departments in various industries like tech! It's one of the big reasons why I left tech and went into healthcare.
I find AI invaluable for research. I’m now using ChatGPT and PerplexityAI - the latter seems better for finding academic articles if you are looking for an evidence base. I also use it for finding holes in my argument or hypothesis. And final editing. I think your description of AI as a writing partner is a good one. I’m not great at perfect expression - it’s my ideas that matter - and AI is helping me test and then express those ideas more clearly.