Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

Modern technology has transformed a lot of what we do, and in some ways, it’s very beneficial. For instance, the GPS or satnav in your car or phone can get you wherever you want to be, even if you’re in another country. Need to know where the nearest pharmacy is? Just ask Siri or Alexa.

AI has become very useful in the professions, too. For instance, it used to be that a researcher had to search through volumes of material to find articles that would be relevant to a study. That process, plus requesting copies of those articles, plus waiting to receive them, could add weeks or more to a research plan. Today, it’s a matter of online searches for materials, downloading copies of articles, and perhaps contacting the authors of those articles. Sometimes those articles are behind paywalls, and some articles are still hard to find. But the overall process is much easier.

While most of us would agree that technology like AI has a lot to offer, there are also serious concerns about it, and an interesting post from Bill Selnes at Mysteries and More From Saskatchewan has prompted me to think about the issues. Bill’s post has to do with an AI chatbot and its role in a young person’s death; in that sense, it’s a set of legal questions. I encourage you to read Bill’s fine article about that issue and how Michael Connelly’s The Proving Ground addresses it.

The use of AI in education raises at least as many questions. On the one hand, why shouldn’t students use, say, ChatGPT to give them examples of math problems, or to show them what a declarative sentence or a simile looks like? On the other, students benefit greatly from doing their own exploration, making their own mistakes as they learn mathematics, and so on. In fact, Sweden has reintroduced paper textbooks and paper/pencil writing; since that time, students’ critical thinking and content knowledge have improved. If students don’t have experience writing their own essays, doing their own lab studies, and so on, they risk not learning those skills. They don’t acquire the nuances of writing – especially writing to varied audiences. Their critical thinking skills arguably aren’t supported, either. There are other drawbacks, too, of heavy reliance on ChatGPT and other AI in the classroom. For instance, AI doesn’t always give correct answers. The very tentative conclusion seems to be that AI has a role to play, but it must be moderated and closely supervised by a well-prepared teacher whose focus is on teaching critical thinking and skills, and more importantly, whose focus is the individuals in the classroom, and their learning.

AI also presents major issues in the world of writing. When I have a particular question for a novel I’m writing (e.g. how long can the police in [place] hold someone without pressing charges?), AI can be very helpful; I get an answer within a second or two. But – and this is an important ‘but’ – it may not be accurate. AI does sometimes get it wrong. Even GPS directions are not always completely accurate. That said, though, assuming one checks accuracy, AI does offer a wealth of that sort of background information for a writer. It’s helpful for grammar questions, too.

There are a lot of serious drawbacks to AI in writing, though. For one thing, if a writer has AI create a story or a novel, that’s not really that particular writer’s work. That raises all sorts of problems with respect to copyright and other matters. For another, AI can miss many nuances and depths of writing that a human author adds to a story. So, the story doesn’t have the layers that readers want. AI-generated work also arguably makes it much harder for human writers to get their work ‘out there.’ And (yes, I know this is repetitive), AI doesn’t always produce accurate, well-polished results. There are other problems, too, with unchecked AI in the world of writing.

There are similar problems to AI-generated music and visual art. It’s the artist’s vision of the piece that makes that piece unique. AI doesn’t necessarily preserve that vision. AI may be able to allow a musician to listen to a particular music passage for inspiration, but that doesn’t mean it substitutes for that musician’s skill at creating new music. Perhaps AI can show a visual artist an example of Joan Miró’s work for inspiration, but it doesn’t bring the artist’s vision to life. And, as is the case with writing, AI raises many copyright and other legal questions in the fields of music and visual art.

The fact is, AI isn’t going away. Acknowledging AI’s benefits, drawbacks, and implications may help us to harness the power of AI technology in ways that support, but don’t supplant, human interaction and effort. Ignoring AI won’t accomplish that. Having conversations about AI, setting boundaries for its use, and taking steps to manage it, will hopefully mean that AI’s existence won’t reduce our humanity. What do you think of AI’s use? What do you think its limits should be? Thank you, Bill, for such important ‘food for thought.’

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Moody Blues’ In the Beginning.