iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Replies

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

1. Here's why I'll never use AI to assist my research or writing: A. I don't want to know exactly what I'm looking for. I mean that when I start researching a topic, I want to remain open to its contradictions and paradoxes, and to the unexpected paths that might lead off it. 🧵

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𝒲𝒜ℒ𝒯 🇪🇺💯✊🏼💙🌊🏳️‍🌈🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🦋🫘🔵 @jagsman.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

AI takes our “thinking” away

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Littleoldladywho +Angie Scarr @littleoldladywho1.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

AI is so often incorrect. Check by asking it who you are. Maybe because you're better known, some of the answers might be true. But I'm guessing some of it will be bollox. I & my brother both tried it. Gave incorrect info on my publications and my brother who is a sound designer it said 'composer'.

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Roger Bridgman @rrabbitt.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

AI is not intelligence, just a convincing imitation of it, like a child that knows all the right words but not what they mean.

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Tim Hitchcock @timhitchcock.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

While I fully understand the sentiments, I have found that using services like NotebookLM allows me to upload and review large bodies of text that I have identified as relevant. And as it includes links to the underlying material - to quicly identify sections I want to read in detail.

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Blue Sky News Muse @blueskynewsmuse.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

1. I asked ChatGPT "If AI is being used to create output for the internet and then AI uses that output for its input. What would be the likely result over time? Here is the reply ->

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Sarah Thurmonster @sarahthurmond.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

“I don’t want to save myself effort.” Yes! I like to feel challenged. I like to figure things out on my on. I like to build up the skills I have within me. What sort of accomplishment is there if a machine is doing all the work?

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Ellin Stein @ellinst.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

AI is not being designed by artistically creative people. AI is being designed by engineers who like systems and are not fans of spontenaiety and unpredictability.

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Rog @shaftoflame.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

My understanding of how AI would currently work in this arena is to just regurgitate the most common take on a subject and thus narrow understanding?

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Lee @nofixedagenda.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I stopped using Google years ago. It’s just a huge language model. Same with Meta & Amazon. 🚫

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psbaker10.bsky.social @psbaker10.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Glad to read that! Victoria Livingston explains it well: "writing is a process closely tied to thinking". She's right, when I write a lecture/report I sometimes find on completion thinking 'I didn't know that when I started it'. time.com/7026050/chat...

time.com

I Quit Teaching Because of ChatGPT

"I found myself spending more time giving feedback to AI than to my students."

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Neil Lewis @neil-lewis.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I think this is exactly the point. AI is useful for synthesising existing information. It's essentially a personalised search engine without the adverts. Original research depends on much more than enhanced search. In fact, AI depends on it!

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Robin Stafford @frenshamrobin.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

And when an increasing amount of whats out there has been written by AI, we'll need to look for material verified to have been written by an actual author

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pouduciel.bsky.social @pouduciel.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I use it for some translations but I treat the results with caution as it can attempt to 'help' by simplifying and modernising the original text to improve 'readability'. I wouldn't rely on it for original research. Try asking an AI model a question where you know the answer and see what happens!

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mickstone1001.bsky.social @mickstone1001.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Isn't it also that you are a little old fashioned? You strike me as the type who prefer a pen to a keyboard, which is a good thing by me.

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Mrs. G @janbellina.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

My main reason would be that it won't be long before AI is trawling mainly AI-generated content to make more AI. My end product could be just a convincing mess of "Chinese whispers" (and can we have a new name for that?)

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swestlake.bsky.social @swestlake.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Exactly. This is one reason why Google search has become less useful; I don't want it trained on what I have searched for previously. If I'm searching on a topic it's because I don't know what I might find. If I had searched before and found a web page, I would already know where it is.

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Dave Jones @davegjones.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I think this overlooks the conversational interface of AI. Being able to chat about ideas, help with drafts, finding things you'd forgotten about. The process of asking AI bots is a learning experience on its own. Just like discussing your work with a peer that has infinite time and patience.

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Pope John XXIV™ @jackcrowther.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Respectfully, you're n̲o̲t̲ doing yourself a favour. Google is advertising delivery platform + an algorithm that skews your results. Using AI is a useful start. From there, you can open a rabbit warren. The trick is to ask the right questions that give multiple possibilities you desire. That's a skill.

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Alastair @al1956.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

This is a similar argument to my feelings about kindle and e-books replacing the experience of wandering round a second hand book shop or library. Apart from anything else, choice is being taken away, limiting yourself to whatever the algorithm picks for you.

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Mickey Blue @poornhonest.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

You can't ignore all internet data threads they do produce useful information. I've found using Incognito windows with DuckDuckGo can sometimes bypass the algorithm traps, especially with history research, past records & journals (old news archives for example) using their search facilities helps.

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Carolina Moon @aozora-aonami.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Plus you cannot trust it to not be making shit up.

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Kim Everson @drmom15.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

It can be a tool that helps or that hinders. Like anything.

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Rodders @rodders-m.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Much of this I agree with and I also think a healthy pinch of cynicism is needed here. AI is just a tool, like a search engine or spell checker - it's how you use the tool. If it is of benefit then consider its use. Will it assist you in your goal. AI shouldn't be for making you lazy!

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Alja Isakovic @iAlja @ialja.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Generative AI can actually be a surprisingly good add-on for exactly what you're describing: with the right questions, it can be a tool for uncovering diverse fields and ideas. My favorite question to ask is, “What am I missing?”

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Nigel Kirwan 🇪🇭🇺🇦🇮🇳🇮🇩🇮🇪Niall Cairdubhain - Shiva Hridaya Gaudapada @npkirwan.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

As if the universe of available resources is online anyhow!

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James Bottomley @jamesbottomley.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

It isn't currently capable of doing anything but wrapping your ideas and words around with pointless repetition, verbiage from unfamiliar sources and tropes derived from techbro wishlists and whimsy. A good example is ChatGPT which draws heavily on Ayn Rand by some strange libertarian coincidence.

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Tony Fallon @tonyfallon.art · 26/11/2024

Good point. Keep creating and discovering as a human. AI (so far) can’t create anything but nonsense. It just scrapes what humans have already done.

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DianeRay @dianeray.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

My husband is 84. Now, when he has to take a phone call, he asks, am I speaking to a human? :)

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Matthew Armstrong-Harris @matthewa-h.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I am less sure. I have been putting some 17th C. sources through Notebook LM just to see what happens and, whilst there are some errors and it is far from perfect, the results have also at times been quite nuanced and have thrown up challenges that I have then gone back and looked at again.

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Prof Mike Yearworth @mikeyearworth.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Good to see this. You can also take a problem oriented approach to research. This is also a non-directed exploration and more like taking a journey bsky.app/profile/mike...

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Jeremy J. Shapiro @jeremyjshapiro.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Absolutely! Research and writing involve a mixture of focusing, searching, openness, exploration, and serendipity.

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Eleanor Fitzsimons @eleanorfitzsimons.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

👏 As a researcher I specialise in going off in tangents & diving down multiple rabbit holes, & what’s more I enjoy it! A very creative process.

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Keith Taylor @mrkeithtaylor.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

People shouldn't use AI to assist in research or writing because AI is like Jordan Peterson. It has the vocabulary, and it can arrange words into conclusions that seem coherent and even insightful at first glance, but on closer inspection they turn out to be utter bollocks.

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Jon Mactoon @jonmckinley.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Artificial Intelligence is to intelligence what Artificial Insemination is to insemination

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tonymacca.bsky.social @tonymacca.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

AI makes stuff up. Let’s not forget that.

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Andrew Porter @retropz.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

📌

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Captain Cabbage @captain-cabbage.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

As a researcher I would say AI is an incredibly useful tool for generating summaries of well established subjects, which can help one quickly familiarise themselves with said subject. It is however near useless in areas of ongoing research.

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Gil Friend - Sustainability OG @gpfriend.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Your concerns are well taken, but my experience is different. I find that well trained, well prompted AIs can provide similar benefits to a team of really smart, capable research assistants. Think augmented intelligence, not artificial. (Some writers won’t use human assistants either. I do. Do you?)

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Chris Painter @rineen.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Part of the problem is the name, there's no intelligence involved, another part is the hype used by salesmen to claim the opposite! But what about a mind lever that shows you unexpected paths, just by counting coincidences? www.headstarter.pro/services/she...

headstarter.pro

Sherlock@Text

Concept Maps

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Iain @ikmc.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

The problem I find is that I can't trust it. I far prefer an old fashioned Web search then sift out my own info. That way I know what I'm getting and have context.

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Andy Hadley @hadleyac.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I dislike the way every Google search now headlines with an AI that seems to just rip content from one article then presented below. It gave me two statements that entirely contradicted each other, poor extraction and not very clever.

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@PatrickCosgrove.bsky.social @axj866.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

It's very good at precising.

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Toby from Bristol @tobyolds.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Do you think AI has any potential use for you?

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Dr Gary Walker @drgarywalker.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Just like thumbing through the pages of many books, back in my uni days. It’s not about finding the “answer” straightaway, but the trial and error and what your eyes read on all those dead ends along the way ☺️

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Dave @dave29.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

"unexpected paths that might lead off it" - that's the best part of doing the research yourself.

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Christopher Hervez @christopher-hervez.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Exactly, AI search engines are great if one already knows the answers. I found that when it comes to creativity - they're great if one already knows the characters, plot and dialogue of a story.

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Claire James @claire-james.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

It’s obvious why AI writing wouldn’t work for your sort of journalism but it’s also crap for even most simpler tasks: Gets facts wrong and invents references. Noticeably artificial writing style Oh and also environmental concerns!

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Andrew Morgan @andrewmorgan666.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Thank you for the post. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

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Steve Atkins @steveatkins.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

In creating original music - it’s the journey, twists & turns, mistakes through exploration that leads to something inherently human sounding/ feeling. I’ll often include mistakes because they sometimes work grate!

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Count De Monte-Jones @exmoorrererrrr.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Exactly. Writing is about shared discovery. AI might have some suggestions on form, but if our minds are not engaged, we are not communicating, nor are we learning.

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Claire Hartnell @cjhartnell.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Generative AI is just a useful re-organisation of knowledge - same as Wikipedia or a textbook. I would never use it for primary research & *never* paste its answers but it’s great for solidifying complex knowledge & checking understanding. No different really from books, priests, teachers etc;

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Genevieve Marshall @genmarshall.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I agree but I worry with the embracing of AI for students in secondary school they'll get to university wholly unprepared for this reality and miss out on so much creative joy and thinking in the process

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Ben Granger @bengranger777.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Totally encapsulates the kind of reasons I never want to use it while writing either.

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Wilkinson @wilkinsonp.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Exactly. It's what's beautiful in research - that in the middle of the night while trying to sleep you can have a random thought that will lead you to a new place. Limiting further research to repetitively recycling concepts from previous literature can't get us into unexplored places.

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siedo.bsky.social @siedo.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

AI isn’t capable of providing the process of discovery offered by traditional methods.

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Mira Kamdar @mirakamdar.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Thank you. I pledge the same!

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oldandcrippled.bsky.social @oldandcrippled.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Absolutely, utterly, irrefutably true.

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Claire💚AKA InkedMum💚Radical Left Scum💚 @inkedmum7377.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

So I’ve never written a book, but I know feeding details into an AI thing will not produce a good book! A good book needs lots of research IMHO

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Shieldzy @shieldzy.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

AI is a tool it’s not a solution

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Snr Elbows 🇪🇸 @senorelbows.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

So true! Akin to arriving at a destination, having used your vehicle sat nav, with literally no idea where you are or how you got there!

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juzzi66.bsky.social @juzzi66.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I'd add another reason. As AI is the most likely answer of everything that's around, the more you use it, the narrower possibilities become. My hunch is that AI will end up limiting opportunities instead of opening. It'll also destroy skills, as it takes over mental work.

mental.work

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Swampy Stu @swampystu.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Excellent thread and many good points- thanks. As a structural engineer, we sometimes review other people’s work and we try to always employ the same process. Start from the beginning and do the work yourself to validate it. It takes longer but your understanding is deeper and more rounded.

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Ken Coello @krc1950.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

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Lucy Seton-Watson @lucysetonw.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Good point. Exactly. Thinking isn’t linear.

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Edward Philips Art @edwardphilips.co.uk · 26/11/2024

All the things that confuse an AI chatbot are the very things that make human creativity uniquely interesting. xx

I asked ChatGPT how to confuse a chatbot. This is its answer.

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MartyH @mogo-uk.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

These AI assistants rely on a very specific algorithm, it’s framed as context and a question. Depending on how you frame the question, you get a result and it can differ significantly, just be subtle changes. Like a spell checker, it only works if you know the right spelling when you know it.

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Kate Walters @katewaltersartist.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Exactly!! Same with painting…. The creative river/stream/flood/whisper is alive and we need to be listening!

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

2. Often, in reading books, reports or academic papers, I'll stumble across something far more interesting than the thing I thought I was exploring. And I’ll come to understand the deep background and context far better than if I allowed a machine to do some of the work.

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Ron Fassbender @ronfassbender.com · 26/11/2024

Difficult to avoid using AI, unless you plan on abandoning computers entirely for your research.

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paul4earth.bsky.social @paul4earth.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Same here. I tested AI on writing a blog. While it did dig up a detail I missed, it lacked the cohesiveness of the one I ultimately produced with my own research and writing. I also like learning when I research a topic. AI doesn’t do that for me.

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Artemis Bear @artemisbear.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Agree! It also produces terrible writing that lacks depth and nuance. I do use it to help me structure my ideas and thoughts though, as well as to proof read.

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D.L. Lee @dlleeauthor.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Hear, hear!

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Nick Wray @nickwray.com · 26/11/2024

Also worth noting energy costs - #ChatGPT type empowered text searches can use 30 times the (server) energy than 'trad' Google (non-AI) search - more for pic searches & gen (up to 'half a smart phone charge') 7mib 30 s in on The Artificial Human, R4, Monday 2nd Sept www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

bbc.co.uk

The Artificial Human - How green is my AI? - BBC Sounds

Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong ask, how green is my AI?

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Nick Wray @nickwray.com · 26/11/2024

It's also based on a world of plagiarism and copyright infringement. AI gen'd conclusions / reports are also reductive, based on sifting 'old' information, arguagbly never truly deductive.

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Dave Anslow @daveanslow.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

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Nettie Edwards @lumilyon.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Yes THIS! The journey

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flapdoodles.bsky.social @flapdoodles.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Thank you 👏

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Yrotitna @yrotitna.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

The problem with AI is that it relies on the information it has been fed and is incapable of being truly original. Unlike a 4 year-old child it is incapable of asking really interesting and challenging questions.

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