AI Transparency

I like AI. I've been following the development of it for decades, having developed a deep interest in it from fiction encounters in the 90s. Even have an unfinished novel that's been on hold for a decade waiting for the tech to catch up with the story. It finally has, just have to get it written now...

I'm aware of the controversies and flaws - most of which are problems with Capitalism, not the technology itself, which isn't actually the existential threat that people seem to think it is, and is very unlikely to develop the sort of "will" that humans have that would lead it to do anything as dramatic as take over the world.

Google's Deep Dream was fascinating.

Then in early 2022, I started noticing some rudimentary generative AI apps popping up. Played with them, they were fun.

Then Midjourney swept the scene.

I fell in love.

Very first thing I did was generate images of Paradox, the goddess I made up a couple decades ago and now I have to guard against starting a cult cuz She started talking to other people...

I have issues with the whole of copyright that I'll get into at some point, so the, "It's stealing the work of artists" doesn't sway me. Also, if we block computers from learning from human texts and images, it's not a far step before corporations block humans from using their materials in education - something that is currently protected under copyright law, but laws are fragile.

I use AI to do things that are difficult or tedious for me. I'm not a linear thinker, so it helps me organize my thoughts. It's also great for figuring out what questions to ask about something I want to learn. I'm undertaking a whole solo dev learning in public project called LoreChain with AI assistance.

Anytime I copy/paste from AI to my Obsidian vault, I'll be adding tags to that note so I and anyone that sees the public notes knows how much AI was used in the creation of that note.

Sometimes, it's a LOT. Like with Hermit Gaming stuff. I use #ChatGPT to generate roll tables for solo games. Most of them are incomplete - I tend to create the tables on the fly as I'm playing a from scratch campaign where game creation, worldbuilding, and character creation all become part of the play. So I might start with one table, roll, create the tables I need for that particular result, and so on. But I stick them in here for future inspiration and as a record of my whims. There's a lot of those...

I also use AI to draft a variety of self-study curricula. I don't always follow them super closely, but they serve as a fantastic starting point. One of my fave ways to do that is a "keyword and questions curriculum" for a particular topic. I know what I want to learn, what do I need to search for? What questions do I need to be asking? I have academic access to the University of Michigan library and all the various databases that grants access to, so just tell me what to look for!

I also use it as a sort of journal that talks back. A therapist that I don't have to worry about judging me - or charging me more than $20/month. It's great for brainstorming.

It's also great for taking stuff I write and helping me sort it out. Cuz my mind kinda wanders from thought to thought and the bot helps me tighten up the threads a bit! I can dump all my thoughts here into Obsidian, then when I've got enough connected notes on a particular topic, I can export those to pdf, dump those pdfs into NotebookLM and work with them using that particular AI to organize everything into whatever it wants to become.