I've NEVER used ChatGPT to write a blog post for me on Hive or anywhere else. My writing comes from inside my own head, and is based on lived experiences, a fertile imagination, a willingness to do research, and a curious mind.

Mind Your Mind

An avid reader, it's not uncommon for me to be devouring several titles concurrently, dropping in and out of each book as the mood suits me. Years ago, I was reading The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius (where I learned about the first historical mention of Jesus and the crucifixion outside of The Bible during the reign of Roman Emperor Tiberius.), The Richest Man In Babylon, and The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, at the same time.

I share this not to boast, but to show evidence that I want to know about everything, all the time. I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and want to know the "why" behind a raft of historical subjects, with a steady eye towards the future as well.

So when I read about AI-generated content, I can envision a time when a majority of articles and blog posts are written one could almost say, by machines.

People like me will be looked upon like quaint curiosities from a bygone age. A person will be able to push out anywhere from 10, to over 100 artificially-produced posts per day, and those that fail to use AI will fall behind.

Who knows, there may come a day when even this august platform will require a certain percentage of our writings to be completely AI-generated in order to receive the juiciest upvotes in order to meet an ever-growing demand for fresh content.

Writing skills be damned.

Now I'm not talking about using AI for spellchecking or to produce a quick blog post graphic. These are tools to assist you in content greation. Things like Grammerly, Gimp, and Photoshop come to mind. I have no problem with Midjourney for example. My focus is on text. This post was written by me in Notepad, and then spellchecked in OpenOffice.

I'm talking about having AI write the post FOR you.

Anyone who does that is a lazy piece of shit.

I've even read amusing news stories of the latest generation being unable to write in cursive or read an analog clock. Growing up, my own sister couldn't name more than a few states on a map of the US, and didn't see why I thought that was important.

There's a belief I have that we should all have what I call "Walking Around Knowledge." You should know who your President and Vice President are, as well as the name of the Speaker of the House in the US, as that is your line of succession.

You should know how many states there are in your country and be able to name them on a blank map. The name of the tallest mountain in the world shouldn't be a mystery to you, and you get bonus points if you can name #2.

Stuff like that. You get where I'm going.

Mine Your Mind

If you know those kinds of things, that tells me that you're curious about the world around you, and are willing to satisfy that curiosity by wanting to learn more. Failing those most basic facts, tells me that you have no "intellectual work ethic," expect everything to be handed to you, and are willing to cut corners to get by in life.

I understand the temptation to say "why do all that reading when I can just type a command into ChatGPT and have it do the reading and writing for me?"

It reminds me of a kid I knew who cheated all throughout high school. He always received amazing grades because he had other students do his homework for him. He never got caught copying someone else's work during tests, and breezed on by without a care in the world.

He used to tease those of us willing to put the work in and actually learn about a subject. When he graduated and entered the world of work, he ran into trouble and couldn't live up to the expectations expected by his faux grades.

Some people are clinging on to AI for dear life and failing to develop the potential of their own minds. I recently watched the film Leave the World Behind starring Ethan Hawke and Julia Roberts. With planes falling out of the sky and self-driving cars run amok, it was an interesting piece of predictive programming.

They better make a part 2...

What will happen to us when the power goes out for years and we've have no internal bank of knowledge due to an over reliance on AI? I don't know. But I'll bet you ChatGPT does...