Blink Blink

I recently read dynomight’s post, “blink if you’re human” and found it compelling. Even though I rarely write here, I see the value in being clear about what this collection of words is. It used to be the norm that every “blog type thing” was human written, and that norm is now long-broken.

So, this is just to say, all the words here, in the past and in the future, are mine alone.

Dynomight’s post gets into the trouble with a declaration like this. Are they still your words if you use a thesaurus? AI use is a spectrum.

I use AI extensively to find information, to write code and make diagrams, and sometimes use it to find mistakes. I think the last item on that list is a bit troubling, mostly because once you’re accepting the machine as a way to find error, it’s very easy to let it “fix” your “error” too, and then, start to cede your voice.

This gets to the heart of my personal line. While I am fine with using AI to find problems and use prompts like this when writing:

• “Find spelling and grammar errors in the following text. For each, give an excerpt of the problem and an explanation of the issue…”
• “Does the following text have any phrases likely to be misinterpreted? If so, explain each…”

I am not comfortable doing anything along these lines:

• “Fix the spelling and grammar errors in the following…”
• “Reword the following to be more clear”

To be specific, I have no interest in passing off the output of the model as my writing.

Does anyone particularly care? (no)
Do I ever really post much here? (also no)
Do I still think this is a good thing to be explicit about? (yes!)