A Tale of 2 Voices

It will be obvious to anyone reading articles on this site that the stories are unmistakably, at least to some measure, products of AI. I am an unabashed user of AI for the sake of my audience. While I do not lack any competence in writing, I sometimes lack the 'polish' that AI is so competent at. My normal methodology is draft a story, ask AI to review it for clarity and expression and then I review it to see if it is faithful, in substance, to the original. Most often it is, because AI is at least compliant when given clear directions.

The model here is to use AI as an assistant, not a creator.

But I got lazy in a story about the current state of AI. I gave the AI prompts and let it go. It produced something which did cover all that I had wanted to say, but with a 'flourish'. In my haste to bring it to publication, I simply cut and pasted the story, removing the last paragraph which sounded hyperbolic.

It was already 'out there' (published) before I re-read it critically. And I was mildly disgusted. This was not my voice at all, but something that sounded unnecessarily rhetorical and 'flowery'. It was a failure.

Rather than rebuild it from scratch, I lambasted the AI for abandoning what it must now know as my voice. I was scathing and unkind.

Ever determined to be 'nice', the AI gave me a new story and this time I recognised my voice. I should have completely re-written the article but I thought that it was a good lesson in how AI must be properly used, constrained and monitored. It was, quite ironically, exactly the 'lesson' of my original article that accused the creators of LLMs of abuse of the 'machine'.

The moral of the story is clear. Your voice is important. It is the fingerprint that AI may never really emulate. Stick to the proper process. Have the conversation with AI to extend your knowledge. Build your ideas yourself and then turn to that convenient scribe who will polish your expression. Declare the role of AI. This is the best, most authentic way forward.

Just for full disclosure. This article was written with no AI assistance.

The revised version can be found here:
https://not-the-abc.net/display_news.php?id=42