A.I. Good vs. Bad

Here's an idea: Compare and contrast the forms of skepticism and pessimism demonstrated in these posts and take the opposite of each to see where the benefits of the tools might be found:

Robin Sloan in Claude revision report, May 2025 when trying to use Claude to edit a fictional short story:

None of Claude’s edits met my standards, which are very high. The model’s sug­ges­tions made the story duller rather than sharper; they clob­bered pre­cisely the bits of lan­guage (often weird-angled) that were the most fun; they pushed the story’s shape and tone pow­er­fully towards conventionality.

and

Dustin Curtis Thoughts on Thinking:

Thinking is compounding–the more you think, the better your thoughts become. But now, when my brain spontaneously forms a tiny sliver of a potentially interesting concept or idea, I can just shove a few sloppy words into a prompt and almost instantly get a fully reasoned, researched, and completed thought.

Okay, further expanding on the earlier idea: Let's connect this with some collected thoughts on the internet is bad vs. the internet is a tool and there’s better ways to use it.

Let's see who's headed in the direction of finding better ways, or at least conscious of and avoiding the bad ways:

Alan Jacobs in Kingsnorth’s Machine:

Some people, of course, know what to do: they opt out. And that’s why we don’t hear from them: we remain in the places that they’ve opted out of. But I continue to believe that it’s possible to use the internet healthily, without unplugging altogether.

and

the Standard Critique of Technology in From Tech Critique to Ways of Living:

We live in a technopoly, a society in which powerful technologies come to dominate the people they are supposed to serve, and reshape us in their image. […] The proper response to this situation is not to shun technology itself, for human beings are intrinsically and necessarily users of tools. Rather, it is to find and use technologies that, instead of manipulating us, serve sound human ends … Those healthier technologies might be referred to as holistic (Franklin) or convivial (Illich), because they fit within the human lifeworld and enhance our relations with one another.

and

Maggie Appleton Dark Forest & Generative AI:

This leaves us with some low-hanging fruit for humanness. We can tell richly detailed stories grounded in our specific contexts and cultures: place names, sensual descriptions, local knowledge, and, well the je ne sais quoi of being alive.

The final edge we have over language models is that we can prove we’re real humans by showing up IRL with our real human bodies.

In Markets for Lemons and the Great Logging Off, Lars Doucet proposed several knock-on effects from this offline-first future. We might see increased fetishisation of anti-screen culture, as well as real estate price increases in densely populated areas.

and

Mike Caulfield in AI Is Not Your Friend:

I am proposing that rather than act like an opinionated friend, AI would produce a map of the landscape of human knowledge and opinions for you to navigate, one you can use to get somewhere a bit better.

But perhaps the more profound question is why we’ve decided to consume the combined knowledge and wisdom of human civilization through a straw of “opinion” in the first place.

and

Sally Hall in Is AI ruining my brain?:

AI hasn’t ruined my brain yet, but I’m going to keep checking to make sure.

and

Finally, back to Robin Sloan again in 'Ask for what you want' is a key skill for the 21st century:

My alternative: get your wish, then stuff the genie back into the lamp.

Questions

• What leads to each of these ways of thinking about how AI is changing creativity and writing?
• How can we choose a path that leads to a better way of thinking about what tools to use and how?

Paths from here

• My Personal A.I. Policy: what I decided to do about it
• On Writing to Understand: letting the tools do the thinking
• Give a crap: the Who Cares Era, and caring anyway
• Bespoke Software: where the tools earn their keep
• Tools may change, but taste is hard to fake.: what the tools can't fake