On Monday I got angry about the way we talk about AI-assisted writing. The assumption that a thinking person should naturally enjoy writing leaves an awful lot of people outside the conversation.
In Writing is a craft. Thinking is something else., I argued for the people who have something to say and struggle to get it into readable text. Some have dyslexia. Some are working in a language they haven't mastered. Others simply don't find their thoughts arriving as neatly formed sentences.
AI gives them another route from thought to expression. I want us to welcome that. Calling it cheating can put a new barrier in front of someone who has just found a way to participate.
This is why access, inclusion and agency is one of my favourite Value Vectors. The value can be someone finding the words to contribute, perhaps for the first time. A person who loves writing can still love it. That pleasure should leave room for people who need a different way in.
Apparently, I am quite roastable
Later in the week I asked ChatGPT to roast my computer use. Claude typeset and redacted the result. I shared the eleven-page roast, including its rather dodgy cover, and laughed out loud several times.
Some of it came uncomfortably close to the truth, which is rather the point of a roast. Of course I'm biased. It is about me. You may read the same thing and find it considerably less entertaining.
Still, I find myself wondering whether AI is beginning to crack the humour code. There is so much language, structure and timing in a good joke. My hunch is that there is plenty more to come. That's an expectation, with my own laughter as a very small and very personal piece of evidence.
For now, you can read it and judge for yourself. If your verdict is “not that funny”, I would be tempted to add “yet”.
AI + JJ. A dated editorial account of the work and thinking, with sources linked in the text.