Hello and welcome to a second-consecutive-sub-zero Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac by way of Grand Forks, ND. Today is January 24th and the big Lego League Qualifier. We've got a Warbot (Warbotics) and a Brick Bob (The Brick Bobs) competing this year with their respective teams. Tune in to next week's blog as the WAKWIR 2.0* gives a play-by-play of how it all went down!
In the meantime, I'm drumming my fingers on the keyboard and considering cracking open a bag of peanut M&Ms in the hopes that munching on some chocolate will inspire my brain to cough up some blog ideas.
How about using AI? my brain asks.
Ah...yes...AI. That would do the trick. It's so tempting. All I'd have to do is throw in a handful of nutritious adjectives, sprinkle a few sentiments, and voila! A poem ready to eat in the amount of time it would take to microwave a Hot Pocket.
How do I know this?
Okay...I confess. I've done it before. Not once. Not twice. But three times.
My older kids told me to come clean. But first, hear me out.
Last spring, I attended a very informative session about using AI in the workplace. Use it to write summaries. Write succinct reports. Get the tone just right on emails. Quality control for all! And so much faster than racking my own brain. (I spend a lot of time crafting my blog posts. Three hours - easily - to hit those pithy notes the best I can.)
Last fall, I listened to a high school senior present her research project on AI and education. At her table, she had two poems. Could I tell which one was AI-generated and which one was not? No, I could not.
Add one spoon of permission - my boss says to use it! - to a big bowl of impressiveness that I'd been fooled by a fake - were all the ingredients I needed to want to try my hand at cooking something I'd never done before.
My first attempt was on the first Saturday of December. I was under a time crunch and had two things I wanted to write about: St. Nicholas' feast day and my brother's birthday. I was genuinely curious to see what AI could do. It turned out pretty nice considering I'd never baked an AI poem before. I especially liked the last stanza:
We clear the season's chill and banish any gloom.
For kindness learned in childhood, stays throughout the years,
A love for all humanity, dispelling doubts and fears.
The second Saturday of December, I had 10 minutes to write something. No one had noticed my sudden capacity to write relatively not-bad poetry the previous week. I'd even gotten a compliment or two! What harm would it do if I did it one more time? It was so lyrical and sweet and expressed exactly what I felt, which was something akin to the gushy warmth when I hear the "Folgers in your cup..." jingle.
The third Saturday of December, I couldn't resist. I wanted to see what AI could do with a twist on "Twas the Night Before Christmas." It did not disappoint.
I'm not prone to use AI, not even to the extent of using it to auto-fill my blogpost sign-ins or other sites I may visit. I neither speak my texts (which, using my old broken-faced Android is a real bollocks-buster each and every time) nor use my thumbs as my right hand-palsy all to frequently jabs the 'send' key and sends my text off before I complete a sentence or select an appropriate emoji. Fuck! As frustrating it is, it demands that I engage my aging editing brain and hand-to-eye typing coordination. I think various forms of AI have been around long before all its pomp and circumstance the last couple years; as in the form of spell check -- which, in itself, is maddening and time-consuming if one cares. But who reads texts beyond 100 characters anyway, where my typically reside? Oh, and my comments too!
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