Like many content creators, I take great pride in the creativity, research, trial-and-error, and effort that go into anything I make. With the explosion of AI (artificial intelligence) and tools like Claude and ChatGPT, there has been lots of controversy regarding the trade-off of increased productivity vs. uncompensated use of other people’s work [as well as the larger conversations about land and resource consumption, and the march toward replacing “human overhead” with machines].
I have often said the problems that we face usually don’t have to do with technology, but with how technology interacts with all of the “isms”: capitalism, racism, sexism, ageism. As someone who enjoys tech, is curious about it, and tends to pick-up new applications and hardware quickly, it feels like using and gaining an understanding of AI applications is a skill set I should have in my tool belt.
I try to avoid taking a “just say no” approach to things. I prefer to say “yes, and…” (with a nod to all my improv friends). Learn how to use the tool, but do so in a manner that doesn’t subvert my or anyone else’s creativity and work. I’m exploring how to install and run AI locally – tapping into my own work, or works by others that I can identify, track, and cite.
Where AI has been used to help me with some heavy lifting – sorting through large file sets, coding some functionality that’s beyond my own current capabilities – I will label that work with a tag acknowledging it.
Where I have otherwise simply used my own, vast creative resources (did I mention I’m a creative problem-solver?:), I will default to the “Certified AI Free” label.
