Okay, so I spent most of last week with posts about Banned Books Week which, based on site traffic, was well received (unlike some books in some quarters), but as we know, AI is being used for writing copy.
Not always for school papers.
Not always for blog posts.
But in familiar patterns like the one I’m mocking right now.
They also like using the em dash, to which I say:
Yeah, I’m not going to give up my em dashes any more than I’m giving up my Oxford commas.
But I have to admit I understand why some people have turned to AI for writing. Writing can be hard. Prolific writers can seem superhuman. In fact, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before prolific writers are accused of using AI (if that isn’t happening already).
One of those prolific writers has to be Cory Doctorow, whose advice about “writing in the age of distraction” was one on my earlier posts getting evergreen traffic.
I haven’t started his book on ensh*ttification (though I have posted about it) and now he has a book all about AI called The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI. What I like about Doctorow, and why I’ve frequently linked to his articles and interviews, is his ability to summarize and distill, arguably in a way AI can’t. He’s also quite irreverent, as you may have gleaned from the term “ensh*ttification.”
So here, with frequent AI critic Adam Conover, is about 85 minutes of educational irreverence that goes into what a reverse centaur is (which explains for me why the current AI age is so dang annoying), but goes into other societal considerations about AI and ensh*ttification, the economy, and what kind of future us plucky humans have.