At the best of times, I’m much more disciplined in my mind than I am in reality. I’ve accepted this about myself, and I do a perhaps laughable job at enforcing that or working around it. But regardless, here we are, several years after the last post, and with a very different world than what it once was. I’m not sure if this is better or worse, but it is something that is. I’m sure that eventually this will get reworked and tossed on my Substack (also terribly neglected), but for now since this is in a more SCA context, it’s going here.
This is more than likely going to be the first of at least two parts, especially in light of some chaos that erupted at the end of last week regarding advertising and art usage, and it was enough to make me break my decades-long ban on arguing online.
What has been on my mind, more than anything, has been the usage of AI. Specifically generative, and using it for things like organization so that essays are easier to write, or to take notes for certain things. Those ubiquitous and small things that make life ‘easier’, and therefore seem to be better able to be explained away as an appropriate usage. Much though I am deeply, deeply, pissed at the idea, I am also quite aware that large chunks of this all seems to be around to stay.
Now, some caveats here – I’m probably a bit of a dinosaur. I was in college almost 20 years ago. I have an MLIS and an Art History BA. My high school was a college prep school that focused on what would be called a classical western education, which means that I have ended up with a skewed view of many things when it comes to what I believe that one should know. (And the eccentricities of my own education and tastes.) I grew up being expected to learn and engage and talk about art and the world around me. I enjoy research, and I think that it’s something everyone should be able to do on their own, and to an extent should want to do. I have, in the years of my adulthood, come to accept that I am an anomaly. That I am perhaps expecting more of my fellow man than they expect of themselves. But I’m also working on being alright with that, because if I don’t hold myself to a standard, I have no grounds to hold anyone else to it.
But this fascination with AI? It kills me. We won’t get into the environmental or economic costs. If you want to talk economics, go and read Ed Zitron’s wonderful newsletter and blog or listen to his podcast. He speaks far better than I could, and I’m not stupid enough to try and reinvent the wheel. For environmental, there are many resources to discuss it and this is not a place where I will be one of them. Again, I’m not going to try and make cases that those better than me can. (For now, I’m not going to get into the generative ‘art’ that it’s used with – signage, videos, images, or whatever else – because that’s a whole can of worms that will make some very bad habits resurface and cause The Plurican to worry more than he generally does about my mental state. Okay, I lie. Here, I make a small detour for one point that will be touched on later, in another post, maybe, probably. If you use AI to generate art – either for yourself or in an SCA context – go fuck yourself. You are the victim of mass delusion and lies, and despite all the very sensible writing about why it’s bad, you continue to use it. It’s not cute. It’s not funny. It’s nothing more than the outsourcing of the use of your own brain and skills to something that has no purpose beyond trying to make the rich, richer. I have absolutely no interest in debating you about the benefits of the slop. It’s lazy, and it reflects poorly across the board. And do not try to tell me that you did it because you didn’t have options. Because you do. You simply didn’t want to look.)
Back to the topic at hand.
Recently, I was in a conversation where the use of AI in documentation came up. The sentiment that one party expressed, and that a recently proposed amendment to Corpora backed up, is that it’s alright for what amounts to organizing one’s thoughts into something that makes writing documentation easier (or for meeting notes) is fine. And you know what, in the context of that argument, it wasn’t a hill I was going to die on. There’s a time and a place, and in this spot it wasn’t worth the fight. I am, among many other things, very disinclined towards making arguments. (Except, it would seem, about the use of AI advertising, but that’s neither here nor there. For now.)
I hate it. I hate all of it. I hate that suddenly people who should know better go ‘oh! but I use it for this and it’s good!’ And I’m sad, because to me it signals a kind of slow death of the researcher. Or at least of curiosity. In a very general sense. We are living in an era where the amount of information that you can find easily is unprecedented, but it feels as if we’re simultaneously in an era where curiosity and ability to find said information are rapidly becoming a dying skill. I understand entirely the desire to make things easier, to want to cut out some of the pointless work in a task, and to help your brain work the way you want it to. Gods know that sometimes I just want to consume mindless crap as much as the next person.
But as a human, an educated human, an artist, a researcher, (and a Laurel) – I think it’s a crutch and it’s an excuse that people use to make kid themselves into believing that it’s alright. It’s a slippery slope and is the first step towards thinking that it is alright for other things. You were able to do this on your own a few years ago, why can’t you now? Part of writing essays is being able to format it, and a well formatted structure will make that first draft much easier. It’s a first draft, it doesn’t need to be perfect – even if it’s 10 PM and it’s due at 7 AM the next morning. The SCA isn’t academia, and please know that I’m not trying to suggest that it should be. Not close. But what I am saying is that an important part of the SCA is learning, and part of learning means learning how to organize your thoughts and how to express them in a coherent manner. It’s not easy, and it does take time. And gods, know that there are a million other things that we could be doing that are far more interesting. But the fact is simple – you are doing yourself no favors by outsourcing the task of laying out your paper to someone else.
Furthermore, in Atenveldt, the rules for how to present documentation are incredibly lax. There is a very large expanse of what is acceptable and how you can present it. You could technically get away without the need for writing out a piece of documentation. But even if one goes that route, there is still the fact that you will need to organize your thoughts, and the act of doing so by hand (or at least by oneself) is an incredibly important part of the process. There is research that shows you learn better by writing out information and working though your thoughts certainly helps to drive the information into your head. This will, like it or not, help you as you continue to work on your own research. For many of us, we focus on something and further research grows out of that original work – so it does make sense to refer to your previous work. Additionally, you’ve organized it yourself, you’ve started with the process for helping to make sure that subsequent pieces follow the same voice and format. (This, admittedly, is perhaps a bit of a stretch, but if you follow my logic that one project leads to another, and that you’re going to be continuing work – having your own voice is important.)
The other thing that I find myself wondering is this – when the AI bubble bursts, as it’s looking to do likely soon… what happens when you no longer have the ability to do it? These tools are so heavily subsidized that users have absolutely no idea what the actual cost is. I don’t think that it’s realistic to assume that they’re going to exist in the same way in even a year. When suddenly you’ve started to rely on something, it becomes so much harder to do it manually. By comparison, the more you do something manually, the easier it becomes – which means it will take less time than used to, and it’s easier to make it a normal part of your process.
And finally, I’ll leave you with one question: Why could you do it a few years ago, and now can’t?
The Viking Apprentice 