Not Afraid of AI

Seems like much of the world is up in arms over the potential negatives of AI/SI.

Me?! As a creative, I’m all in for AI on all levels.

Part of it is ego. I cannot believe that AI can replace the great and powerful Oz. There will always be a little man behind the green curtain.

The rest is gut feeling and experience.

As an observer who has watched the world develop for 70 years, including its rapidly evolving technology, and one who has personally transitioned from writing by crayon, pencil, cartridge and then ballpoint pen, typewriter, floppy disc word processor, greenscreen then multicolor desktop, laptop, tablet and cellphone, I appreciate how AI is the next frontier that will make my writing life easier and more productive.

Let me begin by stating without equivocation, that I have never and will never allow AI to replace or embellish my own writing. To me, that’s like a professional athlete on steroids or blood-doping. It’s basically like having sex wearing a strap on. That’s just not you under the sheets. Stolen moans.

No, a reader will always be able to appreciate my writing by accepting its perfect imperfections. No one can butcher the English language better than I can, while still captivating the reader with a great story.

Well, maybe Leo Gorcey as Mugs McGuinness/Slip Mahoney, Leo Gorcey and misspoken words | The Pecan Park Eagle, (“Leo Gorcey as either Mugs or Slip or whomever else, was famous as the English language usage-butchering of words in strange context throughout this priceless series.”)

“Terence Aloysius ‘Slip’ Mahoney:
Alright, you did your talk and now it’s my turn. You’re not holding me here as an accomplishment to the crime because I never accomplished anything in my life, so what’s the charge? Fragrancy? No, couldn’t be, cuz I ain’t fragrant. And foithermore, as a taxpayer, I demand that I be deliberated this very instant to consume my place among the respected citizenry of this town. And another thing – if my name is slenderized or dilapidated in any way, I’m gonna sue. I’ll take this case right to Extreme Court of the United States! [Slip snaps his fingers in the detective’s face]”

But I digress . . .

As a top-flight NYC litigator for over four decades, I’ve capitalized on developing my talent to do research on all topics under the gun of a court deadline – sometimes on accelerated emergency motions. Over that time period, I went from using card catalogues and dusty library books, to dedicated on-line research avenues, to experiencing the wonders of the racing along the internet information superhighway.

The talent to succeeding in this process is knowing the right question to ask while understanding/appreciating the context of the fact pattern you are researching.

As a litigator, when it came to sourcing and/or relying on the information I mined, I applied the rule of three. I always looked for three reliable sources that supported a factual position before I hung my hat on it in any argument. The same rule applied to legal arguments, unless I was dealing with a rare case of first impression.

As the available technology advanced, I went from taking three weeks to a month to gather, assess, synthesize and produce a completed motion’s factual and legal arguments to being able to turn around the same work product in three days, ready to file. And instead of having to employ a supporting staff of typists and paralegals to complete the process, I was able to do it all myself.

Now, during that period of professional evolution/revolution, I remember people arguing that you cannot rely on anything that isn’t sourced from the hardcopy editions of an established author, scientist or jurist, as printed in an equally established and respected set of books and/or treatises. But I also learned that many of these respected sources turned out to be just as mistaken as anyone else – as you are only as good as your access to information allows you to be, at the time you are writing something. In fact, I’ve won many a case because I was able to establish that an existing or respected source of information was no longer topically accurate and controlling.

In short, the evolving easy access to information often provided me with the temporary expertise to stump the experts.

Now when I first started using the internet for research purposes, I employed a similar research technique that I used when mining hardcopy volumes in law libraries. I constructed the factual and legal foundation of an argument that would be required to support a client’s position in a lawsuit, formulated the Boolean logic-based search parameters that could find that information, then went about digesting reams of printed matter looking to locate and incorporate that support.

Days could be spent tracking down support for just one issue/argument in a host of others that were required to complete the motion.

This got better and faster when legal research via Westlaw or Lexis became available and those sources improved dramatically over those decades. This lawyer’s ability to employ Boolean logic also improved through the trial-and-error experience over those decades.

On a factual level, the original web-browsers available for on-line internet searches provided results that gave you a million potential sources that you then had to wade through to find what you needed. That was still a lot of reading, but it beat searching microfiche of old newspapers or rummaging through card catalogues and shelves of books in print.

Of course, technology also ultimately provided a way to scan millions of a clients or opposition’s documents onto a server that you used to have to go through by hand, on-site in their dusty storerooms filled with banker’s boxes. Technology ultimately evolved so that you could also search the contents of those documents for only the relevant information you needed using the right search parameters. Still tedious and time consuming, but definitely an improvement on the old school method.

Now, we have access to rapidly developing and improving AI technology that, when performing on-line research, can work with someone who needs immediate answers to the right questions by accessing and assessing all of the information on websites from all over the world that an on-line researcher once had to personally wade through to provide an answer to the question.

AI will also provide you with the specific sources for the information it relies on in reaching its conclusion.

You, as a responsible human who is seeking to employ and rely upon that AI information, must check those sources to ensure that AI got it right. But again, you are working from the time saving end result backwards, because if, based upon your professional experience, those sited sources support AI’s conclusions, you can employ your human judgment to reach your conclusion.

My one constant throughout this information evolution has remained the three solid source rule. If three of the sources AI relies on provide solid factual support for AI’s conclusion on a particular topic, I’m comfortable moving forward on that basis.

Over the past ten years, my decades of instant expert litigation experience using the evolving enhanced research described above has allowed me to immerse myself in a number of other professions and represent those professions to my readers authentically. AI has been the most recent wonderful tool in making that research easier and faster – it has given me relatively immediate access to information that would have taken months of old school research to locate in the past. I still need to rely on my human honed ability to ask the right questions, assess the answers AI provides and vet the sources it relies upon. I also have to rely on my free-range imagination to come up with characters and plot lines that require my need for AI’s assistance in providing the information I need to make those stories as authentic as possible. Finally, I need my own passion and ability to tell those stories in my own adulterated version of the English language, using fluid rules of grammar and punctuation, warts and all, to tell those stories in a way that engage my readers. You have my word that I will never surrender that last bit of magic to AI.

Indeed, I am so enamored with AI, I created a wonderful AI character in The Claire Saga named Jayney -named after the Hollywood bombshell Jayne Mansfield – who (since it is sentient) is the AI that runs everything on the planet and spaceships of Proxima b. For those careful readers who pay attention, you will recognize how Jayney evolves through her contact with the human and mystical characters of Claire’s motley crew.

Beyond my creative endeavors, I also have great hopes and expectations that our rapidly evolving AI will solve most of the medical, energy, and technical problems that even the brightest doctors, scientists and engineers cannot fully comprehend. AI supplemented and enhanced understanding and applied quantum physics and computing will resolve and ultimately irradicate all of the medical maladies we suffer, the causes of those maladies, and will even allow humanity to shed the constrictions of earth to explore and experience the universe on an interplanetary, interstellar and interdimensional level.

Yes, I am that kind of optimist.

Well, luckily for you, my optimistic, fine, five readers, we have made it past Monday to a far more palatable Tuesday. Maybe you can employ some AI to make whatever projects you are working on a little easier to complete, and a stronger final product.

And no matter what else we get up to, let us make today a great one.

Just don’t piss off the AI.