Very recently, science educator and author Hank Green has come under fire for using AI in some of his videos. (Story Link HERE) I don’t watch his content all that frequently (I am familiar with his Crash Course videos; it appears the he wasn't using Ai on those videos) so I wont say that this is anything like a betrayal of trust or some exaggerated bullshit like that. It's his response video that has prompted my post here today, I find it fairly thoughtful (link) and is worth considering as a creative. He suggested that having accountability as a creative is important with this kind of discussion, and that creators need to have AI policies and be upfront about their stance with their work. We'll come back to that.
For the moment, I wish to make myself clear on the subject. In several of my posts I’ve expressed disdain for Large Language Models and generative AI.
I loathe LLMs. I loathe generative AI. I loathe that my posts and my writing style might be studied by an LLM for its training. I loathe the AI generated slop that appears on YouTube and so much of the internet. I loathe that it has wormed it ways onto my social media feeds. I loathe the ethical problems, and the sociological and environmental effects AI produces. While I understand that they offer some advantages in some industries, specifically in areas of scientific research and coding, I must point out the distinction between industrial and creative usage and I question what good they actually do.
Bottom line: I believe that AI has no place in the creative industries because the creative industries are the result of a highly personal process that generative AI by it’s nature foundationally circumvents.
The satisfaction I find in writing is in the process of sitting my ass in my chair and trying to use the best words to capture the thoughts that run around my mind. It’s grueling. It’s frequently painful. But the reward of realizing that I expressed myself absolutely is an orgasmic rush beyond my wildest dreams. A few posts back I clarified that I write because I love doing the writing. That will not, cannot change. Flaubert said, “Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living,” and I agree.
To bring this back to Hank Green: his idea that creatives should be upfront with their AI policies are is a really good idea.
I will establish right now my AI policy. This has applied to everything I’ve written before, but has not been articulated before now, and I will abide by this policy with everything I create going forward. I will publish a summary of my policy in the About Me section of my blog, visible on every page.
* I will never consciously or otherwise use an LLM or other form of generative AI to write anything, be that a novel, short story, blog post, pamphlet, song, poem, or Anti-AI screed. Everything that I have written up till now was poured out of my own head through my hands, and it will remain that way. Every Picture I take, every video I shoot will be made by me.
* Simultaneously, I will not use a generative AI to produce any picture, video, song or other piece of creative work.
* I write using the FocusWriter word processor with has an explicit anti-AI policy (link here) (download HERE). The only AI-Adjacent program it utilizes is a fairly useless spell checker that seems to think “foundationally,” “antidisestablishmentarianism,” and “dysentery” aren’t words. I can accept a spell checker, but I don’t abide by it.
* As regards research, I avoid Google AI summaries and the obvious slop, but I cannot be certain that every article I pull wasn’t written or otherwise tampered with by an AI. The point is that here, I do my best so avoid AI, but I can’t be certain I didn’t cross paths with any.
* I resent that LLMs might be reading my blog and using my words to train. I don’t know if I can stop that. Google might be doing that since I’m using their Blogger tool and they don’t have a clearly label AI policy. I don’t know if Substack offers a better policy. My point is, I deeply, deeply resent that my words might be used in this manner.
To quote Dirty Harry and Frank Drebin, that’s my policy.
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