Love your modern parable! And the artwork is great. I don't have any scripture to back up my position, but I'll tell you my attitude with a little personal story. When I was at university, I took a course in business ethics. One time Dr Levine (who was a lovely person, by the way) assigned us to write about "discrimination against women in the workplace". The bottom line of my essay was, "If I have to struggle to get twice as good at the same skills to be able to outcompete the guy next door for the same job, who benefits from that?" Eric, you won't believe the blank looks I get when I pose that question to people. Oh duh, I do! I'm the one who ends up being a more competent person, with greater strength of character because of that struggle. I feel the same way about AI. If I have to hone my skills so my work has more appeal than any AI creation, then I am the one who benefits from the competition. And BTW, Chat GPT, free version, is an astute editor. I asked "him" for some writing prompts one day, sent them back and was left in awe of his suggestions!! "He" does get a little annoying sometimes asking me if I want him to "write up a draft of that idea for you." Lol. Of course, that is exactly what he was programmed to do. "No, dude, I tell him. I love writing." I do happily ask him for chapter outlines sometimes in my nonfiction work and I dearly love tossing ideas around with him.
Hah! No, dude. Yes, I DO have some scripture to back up my position!!! I just realized - we had to read this passage in Anglo Saxon in one of my Zoom classes this week, so it's fresh on my mind----Matthew 25: 14-30 Yep, yep, yep!
I appreciate your thoughts! I can believe that you stumped everyone with that question, because they aren't thinking about becoming better, but simply receiving what they perceive someone else already has, and righting the unfairness of the situation as they see it.
I have found AI to be a good tool for some things, for instance, I've been using AI to make the illustrations on my Substack, including the one attached to this story. Like any tool, it is helpful in some things, not so helpful in other things, and as a human I can become overly dependent on things to my own personal deteriment, or I can use it wisely and improve. It's still up to me.
What I find interesting, and why I wrote this, is that there is this group of people who are so scared of AI taking over their job, that they'll go on this witch hunt for people who use AI. They'll claim that AI is souless and slop, and that the product is so self-evidently awful that no one should use it. But then they can't actually tell sometimes if the product was actually made by or with AI in the first place, so then they are placed in this position that they can't actually know if this piece of art that they are impressed with has a "soul," and they don't know if they're allowed to appreciate it until they've made sure that no AI was used. And they have to shame people into admitting if they used AI or not in order to settle the conflict within themselves.
Love your modern parable! And the artwork is great. I don't have any scripture to back up my position, but I'll tell you my attitude with a little personal story. When I was at university, I took a course in business ethics. One time Dr Levine (who was a lovely person, by the way) assigned us to write about "discrimination against women in the workplace". The bottom line of my essay was, "If I have to struggle to get twice as good at the same skills to be able to outcompete the guy next door for the same job, who benefits from that?" Eric, you won't believe the blank looks I get when I pose that question to people. Oh duh, I do! I'm the one who ends up being a more competent person, with greater strength of character because of that struggle. I feel the same way about AI. If I have to hone my skills so my work has more appeal than any AI creation, then I am the one who benefits from the competition. And BTW, Chat GPT, free version, is an astute editor. I asked "him" for some writing prompts one day, sent them back and was left in awe of his suggestions!! "He" does get a little annoying sometimes asking me if I want him to "write up a draft of that idea for you." Lol. Of course, that is exactly what he was programmed to do. "No, dude, I tell him. I love writing." I do happily ask him for chapter outlines sometimes in my nonfiction work and I dearly love tossing ideas around with him.
Hah! No, dude. Yes, I DO have some scripture to back up my position!!! I just realized - we had to read this passage in Anglo Saxon in one of my Zoom classes this week, so it's fresh on my mind----Matthew 25: 14-30 Yep, yep, yep!
I appreciate your thoughts! I can believe that you stumped everyone with that question, because they aren't thinking about becoming better, but simply receiving what they perceive someone else already has, and righting the unfairness of the situation as they see it.
I have found AI to be a good tool for some things, for instance, I've been using AI to make the illustrations on my Substack, including the one attached to this story. Like any tool, it is helpful in some things, not so helpful in other things, and as a human I can become overly dependent on things to my own personal deteriment, or I can use it wisely and improve. It's still up to me.
What I find interesting, and why I wrote this, is that there is this group of people who are so scared of AI taking over their job, that they'll go on this witch hunt for people who use AI. They'll claim that AI is souless and slop, and that the product is so self-evidently awful that no one should use it. But then they can't actually tell sometimes if the product was actually made by or with AI in the first place, so then they are placed in this position that they can't actually know if this piece of art that they are impressed with has a "soul," and they don't know if they're allowed to appreciate it until they've made sure that no AI was used. And they have to shame people into admitting if they used AI or not in order to settle the conflict within themselves.