This might be the most sane take on AI I’ve seen on Substack. So many on this platform are so preoccupied with thinking and talking about the technology they claim to despise and trying to derive a sense of superiority by catching others cheating as you put it. I can definitely relate to the frustration people feel at seeing the same overused AI-generated language all over the Internet, but I don’t think using AI to police human creativity is the right answer.
What a brilliantly written article about the creation process and what AI policing will take from people. They will miss the opportunity to engage openly and experience the art and meaning of an article. Art is meant to cause us to think, but also to feel. Thank you for writing this Monica.
I appreciate you, I think you're right, as a 73-year-old I found AI to be a tool that unlocks a lifetime of experience. I think we need to adjust our thinking about authoring and accept a new/old term - auteurism. The conveyance of ideas should not be denigrated necessarily by the form.
I was just thinking this same thing. I'm also an artist and a writer. I use a camera to take pictures when I don't want to spend the time drawing or painting an image. Does that make my work morally bad? And why in the world would I feel the need to justify it? Has anyone who believes AI tools used for writing actually tried to write a decent story or post with it? Because it isn't easy, you can't just put in a prompt and get a good quality result without a lot of back and forth, brain dumping, editing, correction...There's no point where you can just take an AI output and post it and go eat bon bons. It makes me angry, what with so much going on in the world that causes significant problems for large populations, people---corporations---would prefer to be morality police instead. And 'Bad Substack!' for allowing this to happen, for falling for it instead of finding a better solution. There must be other ways to tackle the pervasive issues of deceptive writing, issues which were well established prior to the invention of AI, than to promote methods for establishing moral hierarchies. [This wasn't written with the use of AI, just fueled by anger. And yes, it still took editing to get it finished. Without AI, it's not very good, but I'll let it stand anyway.]
"That strikes me as especially damaging in the faith and spirituality space, where people come seeking meaning, connection, insight, comfort, possibility, and truth."
I agree.
This is one of the things that I think about the most, really. Because it is exactly those in these communities that seem to be so vehemently anti-AI that they will shun and shame any and all use of it.
I saw your comment on the SubStack announcement & some of the responses to you were incredibly vile. Why do people think it's okay to say things like? Things like that make me even more concerned.
Some of recent comments about AI remind us that some people are always looking to meddle judgmentally in what others are doing. It’s like a substitute for what people really want to complain about (a scapegoat, but for what purpose?). And the same sense of helplessness spreading through online discourse like an oil spill in a puddle polluting the environment. Still postponing posting on Substack. Thanks for your conversation.
I used to be married to a software engineer. The marriage may have failed, but he did teach me a couple of foundational things about tech that still hold true. Technological tools, are just that. Tools. Also, he taught me the phrase 'garbage in; garbage out'. Or, the results of the tech tool you use, is only as good as its input(s). AI goes about the same way. While folks may go on about 'AI slop', they're also totally ignoring the brilliance that might possibly come out of it, too. For example, the other day, I was on YouTube, listening to music. I found myself on an AI music channel, and I was blown away. I could not even begin to imagine the quality of the inputs to AI that must have gone into making that music possible. Yet I enjoyed that music, very much. That does not in the slightest detract from the music I have enjoyed and continue to, that came along before AI was a thing. So. That said. I believe that both solely human input and AI assisted input both have their place. For now, this is all.
I couldn’t agree with you more! I love using AI as the wonderful tool that it is. It helps edit my work when I say the same thing in three different ways or polish a paragraph that reveals the truth behind the words. It can’t tell my story because it hasn’t lived it. But it has made me a better writer by helping me recognize familiar patterns and to make every word count. In other words it has helped me write more honestly not less. Thank you for writing this Monica.
"But he was not engaging with my work — he was investigating my compliance. He was not curious about the idea; he was curious about whether I had passed the test.
That is exactly the culture this tool creates.
It does not create better readers so much as inspectors; it does not encourage discernment so much as suspicion; it does not deepen the conversation so much as replace it.
Curiosity about a writer’s process can be fascinating.
But curiosity comes after appreciation."
This is *everything*.
I realize I'm doing that gauche thing, but I have to tell you, Monica, that I just finished recording a conversation with a friend that I'm going to publish tomorrow, and it is all about this exact thing, and I'm just noticing relief / courage in reading this piece in anticipation of that coming out. Which is all to say: thanks for writing.
Thank you for this essay, it is written eloquently. I wrote for many years without any interactions with Claude, primarily because there was no Claude. In those days my writing process was fast. I wrote and I emailed my lived experience to my community. Now, I brainstorm with Claude once I get an idea for an essay. There is a lot of back and forth. It could take up to a week to write an essay and in the process I learn so much about myself. I am a self help junkie and I love learning what is underneath my words and Claude helps me do that.
I have turned off AI detection too. It can’t measure the week I spent, only the sentence I ended with.
Monica, thank you for putting words to what has been troubling me about this. A detector can examine patterns in a finished piece, but it cannot measure the lived experience, intention, care, or years of life behind it. My deepest purpose has always been to help women feel seen, supported, and less alone. The writing is the vehicle for that. This helped me step back from the panic and remember what actually matters.
Thank you. After I published this article, I drew a line in the sand, so to speak. I no longr give the AI detector nor potential problems a second thought. Your work, my work on here is important and that is where I choose to use my attention. No more thought about AI from this ol gal!
This might be the most sane take on AI I’ve seen on Substack. So many on this platform are so preoccupied with thinking and talking about the technology they claim to despise and trying to derive a sense of superiority by catching others cheating as you put it. I can definitely relate to the frustration people feel at seeing the same overused AI-generated language all over the Internet, but I don’t think using AI to police human creativity is the right answer.
What a brilliantly written article about the creation process and what AI policing will take from people. They will miss the opportunity to engage openly and experience the art and meaning of an article. Art is meant to cause us to think, but also to feel. Thank you for writing this Monica.
I appreciate you, I think you're right, as a 73-year-old I found AI to be a tool that unlocks a lifetime of experience. I think we need to adjust our thinking about authoring and accept a new/old term - auteurism. The conveyance of ideas should not be denigrated necessarily by the form.
Perfect.
Just...perfect.
I was just thinking this same thing. I'm also an artist and a writer. I use a camera to take pictures when I don't want to spend the time drawing or painting an image. Does that make my work morally bad? And why in the world would I feel the need to justify it? Has anyone who believes AI tools used for writing actually tried to write a decent story or post with it? Because it isn't easy, you can't just put in a prompt and get a good quality result without a lot of back and forth, brain dumping, editing, correction...There's no point where you can just take an AI output and post it and go eat bon bons. It makes me angry, what with so much going on in the world that causes significant problems for large populations, people---corporations---would prefer to be morality police instead. And 'Bad Substack!' for allowing this to happen, for falling for it instead of finding a better solution. There must be other ways to tackle the pervasive issues of deceptive writing, issues which were well established prior to the invention of AI, than to promote methods for establishing moral hierarchies. [This wasn't written with the use of AI, just fueled by anger. And yes, it still took editing to get it finished. Without AI, it's not very good, but I'll let it stand anyway.]
"That strikes me as especially damaging in the faith and spirituality space, where people come seeking meaning, connection, insight, comfort, possibility, and truth."
I agree.
This is one of the things that I think about the most, really. Because it is exactly those in these communities that seem to be so vehemently anti-AI that they will shun and shame any and all use of it.
I saw your comment on the SubStack announcement & some of the responses to you were incredibly vile. Why do people think it's okay to say things like? Things like that make me even more concerned.
Some of recent comments about AI remind us that some people are always looking to meddle judgmentally in what others are doing. It’s like a substitute for what people really want to complain about (a scapegoat, but for what purpose?). And the same sense of helplessness spreading through online discourse like an oil spill in a puddle polluting the environment. Still postponing posting on Substack. Thanks for your conversation.
I used to be married to a software engineer. The marriage may have failed, but he did teach me a couple of foundational things about tech that still hold true. Technological tools, are just that. Tools. Also, he taught me the phrase 'garbage in; garbage out'. Or, the results of the tech tool you use, is only as good as its input(s). AI goes about the same way. While folks may go on about 'AI slop', they're also totally ignoring the brilliance that might possibly come out of it, too. For example, the other day, I was on YouTube, listening to music. I found myself on an AI music channel, and I was blown away. I could not even begin to imagine the quality of the inputs to AI that must have gone into making that music possible. Yet I enjoyed that music, very much. That does not in the slightest detract from the music I have enjoyed and continue to, that came along before AI was a thing. So. That said. I believe that both solely human input and AI assisted input both have their place. For now, this is all.
I couldn’t agree with you more! I love using AI as the wonderful tool that it is. It helps edit my work when I say the same thing in three different ways or polish a paragraph that reveals the truth behind the words. It can’t tell my story because it hasn’t lived it. But it has made me a better writer by helping me recognize familiar patterns and to make every word count. In other words it has helped me write more honestly not less. Thank you for writing this Monica.
Wanting to shout this from the rooftops:
"But he was not engaging with my work — he was investigating my compliance. He was not curious about the idea; he was curious about whether I had passed the test.
That is exactly the culture this tool creates.
It does not create better readers so much as inspectors; it does not encourage discernment so much as suspicion; it does not deepen the conversation so much as replace it.
Curiosity about a writer’s process can be fascinating.
But curiosity comes after appreciation."
This is *everything*.
I realize I'm doing that gauche thing, but I have to tell you, Monica, that I just finished recording a conversation with a friend that I'm going to publish tomorrow, and it is all about this exact thing, and I'm just noticing relief / courage in reading this piece in anticipation of that coming out. Which is all to say: thanks for writing.
Thank you for this essay, it is written eloquently. I wrote for many years without any interactions with Claude, primarily because there was no Claude. In those days my writing process was fast. I wrote and I emailed my lived experience to my community. Now, I brainstorm with Claude once I get an idea for an essay. There is a lot of back and forth. It could take up to a week to write an essay and in the process I learn so much about myself. I am a self help junkie and I love learning what is underneath my words and Claude helps me do that.
I have turned off AI detection too. It can’t measure the week I spent, only the sentence I ended with.
Monica, thank you for putting words to what has been troubling me about this. A detector can examine patterns in a finished piece, but it cannot measure the lived experience, intention, care, or years of life behind it. My deepest purpose has always been to help women feel seen, supported, and less alone. The writing is the vehicle for that. This helped me step back from the panic and remember what actually matters.
Thank you. After I published this article, I drew a line in the sand, so to speak. I no longr give the AI detector nor potential problems a second thought. Your work, my work on here is important and that is where I choose to use my attention. No more thought about AI from this ol gal!
Me too! Onward and Upward. We have more important work to focus on. All the best Monica!