2022: The year when AI showed up in a tux, wearing flipflops.

A year defined by both the triumph of humans and its idiocy. Sri Lanka booted out a despot. Elon Musk...well, never mind. Also my amazing students who recharge my batteries. But first, my take on AI.

There’s Human Intelligence, and Artificial kind. I wasn’t taken up by the bluster about AI (which showed up like some fancy vehicle trying parallel park in front of the house, but running over the Rhododendron.) I did give it a try, however:

1. AI ART - THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT.

My readers of previous columns know I make fun of phrases like ‘low-hanging fruit’ so I hope you know I’m tongue-in-cheeking this section to demo AI Art. (I used another app called Starryai in a pervious newsletter.) In my second attempt, I called up the algorithms on Dall.E to see if this fancy pants tool could design a magazine cover.

The prompt that I typed, into Dall.E, was: “WIRED magazine cover with Dall.E.”

Could it ‘design’ a cover of tech magazine, WIRED? I was margially impressed even though the graphics were overly arty. WIRED occasionally wanders into this territory. I say ‘marginally’ impressed because while it gets the look right, the details are bloody amateurish, even clumsy. Compare those designs to an actual, art-directed cover of WIRED - below.

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2. AI WRITING - MORE HYPE THAN SUBSTANCE

I teach creative writing in all my classes. Naturally I’ve been intrigued, and alarmed by how AI could mimic writing. A skill at which we humans excel. Many people are hailing this as the death-knell for flesh-and-bone writers, journalists etc.

I checked out an application on the ChatGPT platform known as OpenAI that some people have told me can write fairly convincing content. I was suspicious. I had read a piece by a marketing writer, Mitch Joel about this. To check how smart this AI could be I typed in this snarky prompt: “Is Mitch Joel right about AI platforms.”

I wanted to see if this ghost in the machine was savvy enough to pick up his argument and reference it. As I guessed, it didn’t live up to my expectations. In fact, the software apologized for its inability to do more than explain what Mitch does for a living, and went on to explain how these are still early days! (Brownie points for admitting that it doesn’t know what it doesn’t know.) Here’s its entire response that I screen-shotted, so you can see how it got the syntax and grammar down.

The website sets our expectations, in fact, saying things like, “ChatGPT sometimes writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers.” Hmm!

Having said that, others are raving about AI content generators like Jasper. It’s supposed to be a boon for copywriters, social media posts and SEO content.

HERE’S MY TAKE ON AI. Content creators of the world —authors, journalists, copywriters, podcasters —shouldn’t feel threatened. Good copywriters don’t sit at a desk stringing clichés to adjectives. They walk the factory floor, sit through plans board meetings, and argue with brand managers before the concept emerges. Translated: They produce content, rather than regurgitate it. Translated again: The fruits of AI are tempting but aren’t ready to pluck. Even for students.

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Which is a good time to showcase three examples of my students’ best work. This is why students —and human intelligence —continue to amaze me. Even when messing around with technology. Enjoy!

• The first - one of the 120 eBooks written, designed by my students in December.

• The second - a demo by my robotics students.

• The third - a video podcast about content.

• The fourth - a student-hosted podcast about history.