Tag Archives: me

student blogs

Use Your Authentic Voice

Over this break I was at a wedding. One of my closest friends was getting married to his fiancé (now wife) of 5 years. It was a beautiful event I got to see my friends dressed to the nines, me and my partner also got to dress up, and I got to privilege to hear the groom & brides vows and my other friends best man speech (though the best man’s speech was influence by a concoction of Hennessey, Moscow mules and tequila his voice was felt throughout the venue.

obligatory wedding picture

Their love, souls and emotions cascaded into their words. It was as authentic as authenticity can be. Something so human cannot be replicated. I’m sure that if i transcribe it on to paper (digitally?) and run it thru Originality.ai it would be 100 % human.

When I read the Originality.ai article I got a wave of relief, immediately followed by a wave of dread (there’s a duality of man joke there but I digress).

Let me explain my dread first. 1) there’s no free trial. if its being used by educators its another expense for them, and as every educator you don’t go into education for the money. Also schools/education programs are extremely under funded. 2) Its’s for profit. The tool costs $0.01 per 100 words to scan (equal to 1 credit) $20: 2,000 credits $50: 5,000 credits $100: 10,000 credits $250: 25,000 credits $500: 50,000 credits. Imagine the bill college professors would rack up using these on essays, term papers and dissertations. Now for some relief. 1) authenticity is my main concern with Ai and although you can tell when its been, since it lacks voice [humanity?], having a tool that tells you what percentage is AI is bound to be helpful. 2) The creation of this Ai detection tool is bringing to light the ability for Ai’s abuse. We in the field of writing have already noticed its existence and impact but shining a light on it will make this issue mainstream.

the Carlow University article speaks on how to find and develop your voice. It ends with the words “as a writer, you have to set yourself apart”. Which is what we want as creatives. To stand out, to say look at this thing I’ve created, and to induce the same emotions you felt while creating it, in others. (at least that’s what I want) Diction, Syntax, Imagery, Tone etc. an amalgamation of all these terms, plus a lot more, is what makes your writing unique and what makes it yours. It’s also what connects you to your audience, cause regardless if its 1, 10s, 1000s or millions of readers your unique spark of creativity is what will reach them.

student blogs

Educators, AI, and (my) Anxiety

The articles this week did not help my ever growing anxieties about AI. Alberto Romero article opened up some new avenues of anxiety. I had only thought of ChatGPT assisting human on writing, grammar, essay prompts, (bad) poetry, and then he started to list off the other AI programs being created by: google, facebook, the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI). He even went as far as claiming ChatGPT as OBSOLETE. With the speed that AI is upgraded, how far have these programs progresses since this article’s publication date (Aug 7, 2021).

 It may not replace us from being writers, but the price of our work would decrease significantly, even if the value we produce is constant.

Alberto Romero

This quote struck at my creative anxiety hard, (the wine im drinking isn’t helping) because if the ease of creating articles and essays with AI making established writers uncomfortable, imagine how I am feeling, a novice attempting to enter the medium of publishing my own thoughts and creative endeavors. If someone can just have AI write for them and just “edit” their voice in what chance is there for me who wants to organically create. It doesn’t help that Romero ends the article with personifying AI and suggesting that we befriend it, rather than use it sparingly or intelligently or anything other way that doesn’t attempt to give it life.

in Erik Ofgang article Free AI Writing Tools Can Write Essays in Minutes. What Does That Mean for Teachers? he directs the anxiety to the Pedagogical field, a field im reluctant to join but its not out of the question. In it he relates the usage of AI to plagiarism. Which is the right direction in my opinion, however how can you identify AI writing when its being used in conjunction with the student. Like I mentioned above, you can edit your voice in to the writings it generates. Ofgang cites an op-ed in The Guardian which suggest repositories where papers can be checked for plagiarism and restrictions and age-verification systems but these are surface level restrictions only meant to limit misuse. I can think of several way of bypassing these systems which I wont go into.

MINI RANT

Ofgang ends the article with a AI generated passage and a comment “it may not win a Pulitzer but it’s probably good enough to get a good grade“. Therein lies the rub. Students who regularly enlist the help of AI are doing it to cut corners, to not have to do the work and just get the grade. Maybe the importance we place upon grades for accomplishing the task is to blame for this snowball turned avalanche. Students only caring about a getting passing grade rather than genuinely learning the skills necessary to writing proficiently. Who is to blame then? the students utilizing a tool, or the decades of value placed on a outdated grading system.

student blogs

Welcome back faithful HUMAN reader

“I’ve only slept comfortably with the worst person in my arms”

That quote was started by a friend of mine, I added the rest. It was said as a snarky remark. To you, it might seem like I’m being an ass but he hollered with laughter, and my smirk quickly became a chuckle and a then full on laughter. Once the laughter subside, I quickly realized the potential of this quote ad franticly wrote it down, exclaiming “I’m absolutely using that in my next poem”.

unknowingly, we had collaborated, we connected, we (me) got inspired…organically. Gero mentions authors hitting writers blocks, and using AI to get the creativity flowing. Which (if I wasn’t such a hater of Ai) would sounds great, having someone(thing) to get you out of those ruts on your time. I cant remember all the times I’ve reached out to my writing peers and have been met with silence due to our conflicting schedules. However, I believe it could not replicate that beautiful quote that was created off a whim. You couldn’t write an algorithm that could replicate our banter. Sure there’s a pattern in my words, & phrases but can that encapsulate me. What I am, how I act, my idiosyncrasies. I found an article about Idiosyncratic Expression but the way it was cemented into my brain was through Good will hunting. When Robin Williams character Sean Maguire is talking about his dead wife farting herself awake. (minute 1:30 if you don’t want yo watch the whole scene).

I think about writing and AI a lot cause well that’s my interest, my creative outlet, and the storm clouds are forming over it. But in the Age of AI they spoke about self driving long haul trucks. Human drivers can legally only drive 11 hours without stopping, so having a self driving 18 wheeler sounds phenomenal. Imagine your amazon package never being late regardless if its coming from NYC or LA. my only response to this is…. have you seen the tesla self driving accidents? Here is one and hey look here another and some statistics (Don’t want to read the long winded government report? here’s a Forbes article). Now imagine a giant Truck on an interstate, malfunctioning. I work for DHL in the receiving department, a bulk of my work depends on these trucks arriving on time and let me tell you, a small flurry of snow sets them back hours.

An exaggerated image? yes. does my point still stand? I’d like to think so.

student blogs

Howdy

my name is Erik not eric, I am an aspiring poet , writer and (potentially, possibly maybe, perhaps) an educator for higher Education. I love to read and write poetry and create fantasy worlds. [world building is fun and not stressful at all]. a few of my favorite things to do are Bouts-rimés, watch criterion movies, collect rare books, and hand write letters to my friends which I send through the USPS (basically archaic i know but who doesn’t like receiving physical mail)

I’m present myself as a very calm and collected person, but in my mind I am freaking out 66% of the time, 23% of the time I’m cracking jokes that only I would think are funny, and the rest of the stressing about deadlines. It’s a mess but its functional, i like to think of it as controlled chaos like this .

I’m extremely excited & terrified to be in Grad school after being out of school for 5 years. I got my undergrad from… Kean in English Literature. So I’m Doubling down on the Kean Degrees.

put on your tinfoil hats everyone

I am [internally] terrified of AI, and rightfully so. AI that’s programed to learn and grow seems so far off, but human innovation doesn’t rest, it keeps progressing whether you want it or not. Eventually, we’ll reach this, or this. I’m over exaggerating for dramatic effect, but we are in the early stages of AI and creatives Educators and academics have yet to figure out if it will hinder or help.