5 Tips for a Healthy Use of AI

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The following strategies can help you maintain a healthy balance between your expertise and AI assistance:

  1. Generate rough drafts from notes, rather than from a blank page: It’s fine to generate drafts with AI, but do your thinking first, put together some structured notes, and treat AI-generated content as a first draft that requires critical review and substantial editing. This approach can help mitigate the risk of anchoring bias.

  2. Rotate between AI-assisted and non-assisted writing: To develop and maintain your own writing skills, interweave AI tools into your writing workflow, rather than relying on them for chunks of text. This will also help you maintain your own voice.

  3. Customize AI prompts: Learn to craft specific prompts that guide the AI to produce more relevant and useful outputs for your particular needs.

  4. Ethical considerations: Be transparent about AI use, especially in academic writing, and follow any guidelines or policies set by your institution or publication venues.

  5. Fact-check and verify: Always verify facts, citations and specific claims made by AI. These tools have a tendency to generate “hallucinations,” plausible-sounding but inaccurate chunks of information.

From The Transmitter

Emotional Blackmail

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When someone attempts to make you take responsible for their feelings, they are committing what psychologists call emotional blackmail. A parent uses this when telling a child, "You've hurt me so much," or when a spouse says, "You hurt my feelings.

It is placing responsibility for their emotional outcome on you—pretending you have control over something that you do not. The parent may choose to become angry or sulk or become bitter or irritable toward the child. Someone may claim your action justifies their emotion. But that person is still doing the choosing of their own emotions.

When you see a family tiptoe around the house because "we don't want to upset mother (or father)," then you have a family who has decided to make everyone responsible for a single person's feelings—taking on a burden they were never meant to carry. Each family member is responsible for his or her actions. It’s the wrong goal to aim at preventing someone from ever being upset.

Elizabeth Kenny once said, “Anyone who angers you conquers you.” To allow someone else to decide how you feel is abdicating your responsibility to define yourself. Don't allow someone else to sell you on the idea that you are responsible for what they feel. Don't blackmail those around you by threatening to unleash an emotional outburst for something you yourself created.

Stephen Goforth

15 Articles about AI & the Creative Arts

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AI Definitions: Generative AI

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Generative AI (GenAI) - Artificial intelligence that can produce media content (text, images, audio, video, etc.). It operates similarly to the “type ahead” feature on smartphones that makes next-word suggestions. You might say it is like autocomplete at scale with the ability to go back and forth with the user to refine and tweak the requests.

More AI definitions here.

Creating Candidates for Cults

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Cults do not destroy families as much as stuck-togetherness attitudes in families create candidates for cults. When parents focus on societal influence it actually serves to increase their anxiety even though it helps them avoid personal responsibility. On the other hand, parents who accept the fact that their children are less likely to be influenced by other systems to the extent that they are comfortable in their own, while they might find the idea more painful at first, are given an a means of approaching the problem that is quite within their power, and it can, in turn, contribute to their own self-respect.

Edwin Friedman, Generation to Generation

25 Recent Articles about Journalism & AI

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Here are the AI essentials that our experts are using, promoting and nervous about – Poynter

Historic Newspaper Uses Janky AI Newscasters Instead of Human Journalists - 404 Media

How I’m Trying to Use Generative AI as a Journalism Engineer — Ethically – The Markup

David Caswell: “All journalists should be trained to use generative AI” – Hello Future

AI companies have a news problem. Journalists have the skills they need to fix it. – Columbia Journalism Review

‘Being on camera is no longer sensible’: persecuted Venezuelan journalists turn to AI – The Guardian  

How The New York Times' Granular Gen AI Tool Drives Campaign Performance – Ad Week 

Meet NAT, the AI-generated presenter offering soft news to Mexican audiences – Reuters

After getting caught fabricating quotes using AI, Cody reporter resigns – Wyoming News 

India’s star audio content company is going all in on AI. Will listeners tune in? – Rest of World  

Two 80-something journalists tried ChatGPT. Then, they sued to protect the ‘written word’ – Associated Press

Reality Check Commentary: No News Is Bad News: Some AI Models Are Trained to Avoid News – New Guardian  

CNN slashes 100 jobs as it announces major AI-focused overhaul – Raw Story  

The Washington Post debuts AI chatbot – Axios  

The assignment: Build AI tools for journalists – and make ethics job one – Poynter  

Why video journalism is not ready to ditch its editors because of AI – Journalism.co

Google Search Ranks AI Spam Above Original Reporting in News Results – Wired   

Global audiences suspicious of AI-powered newsrooms, report finds - Reuters  

How AI helped a local newsroom in Argentina boost its reach, innovation and sustainability - International Journalist's Network  

Fact-checkers urge collaboration, caution in using artificial intelligence tools – Poynter

How Donors Can Support Responsible AI Use in Journalism – Journalism Funders Forum   

OK computer? Understanding public attitudes towards the uses of generative AI in news - Reuters 

Breaking down ESPN’s decision to use AI to write some game stories – Poynter

Our standards for using AI at The Dallas Morning News – Dallas News

California announces new deal with tech to fund journalism, AI research – Associated Press

New Washington Post AI tool sifts massive data sets - Axios

8 Great Quotes about AI & Humanity

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Generative AI is currently very good at replicating parts of software programs that have been written many times before. But what if you want to create something new? This is where smart human coders will still be needed. - BusinessInsider

I think the rise of AI is going to result more in-person sales. If everyone can do it, people will not listen or read any emails or anything like that they just stop because it’s all generated. It means every email they got is amazing. They won’t believe any of it unless somebody looks them in the eye and says, ‘I’m a real person and here’s why this is true.’ - Ronan Perceval CEO of Phorest

Given that we don’t know what the lay of the land is going to be in five, ten years there are two crucial things for publishers to focus on: what do we do that’s irreplaceable? What do we do that a machine can’t do? - Wall Street Journal editor Emma Tucker 

Studies this year of ChatGPT in legal analysis and white-collar writing chores have found that the bot helps lower-performing people more than it does the most skilled. On a task that required reasoning based on evidence, however, ChatGPT was not helpful at all. Here, ChatGPT lulled employees into trusting it too much. Unaided humans had the correct answer 85 percent of the time. People who used ChatGPT without training scored just over 70 percent. Those who had been trained did even worse, getting the answer only 60 percent of the time. In interviews conducted after the experiment, “people told us they neglected to check because it’s so polished, it looks so right.’ - David Berreby writing in the New York Times

Like an episode out of Black Mirror, the machines have arrived to teach us how to be human even as they strip us of our humanity. Artificial intelligence could significantly diminish humanity, even if machines never ascend to superintelligence, by sapping the ability of human beings to do human things. “We’re seeing a general trend of selling AI as ‘empowering,’ a way to extend your ability to do something, whether that’s writing, making investments, or dating,” AI expert Leif Weatherby explained. “But what really happens is that we become so reliant on algorithmic decisions that we lose oversight over our own thought processes and even social relationships.” What makes many applications of artificial intelligence so disturbing is that they don’t expand our mind’s capacity to think, but outsource it. - Tyler Austin Harper writing in The Atlantic

As machines like A.I. eliminate routine tasks what gets left behind are the human skills we deem soft. - Jane Thier writing in Fortune

While AI is very powerful at human level or even superhuman level for many tasks, there are many other things where humans continue to have a big advantage, and that's going to continue to be true for quite some time. - Kate Whiting writing in WeForum

“Prompting AI systems is no different than being an effective communicator with other humans. The same principles apply in both cases. This makes me bullish on reading, writing, and speaking as the 3 underlying skills that really matter in 2024.”  - An Open AI employee Tweet

26 Recent Articles about AI & Writing

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From bench to bot: Does AI really make you a more efficient writer? - The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives

Did an AI write up your arrest? Hard to know – Politico

AI Editing: Are We There Yet? - Science Editor

How do I cite generative AI in MLA style? - Modern Language Association

I tested 7 AI content detectors - they're getting dramatically better at identifying plagiarism – Zdnet 

OpenAI says it’s taking a ‘deliberate approach’ to releasing tools that can detect writing from ChatGPT  - Tech Crunch  

AI is complicating plagiarism. How should scientists respond? – Nature

The telltale words that could identify generative AI text - Arstechnica

Research shows that AI-generated slop overuses specific words – Futurism

AI took their jobs. Now they get paid to make it sound human – BBC  

AI and the Death of Student Writing – Chronicle of Higher Ed

Software that detects ‘tortured acronyms’ in research papers could help root out misconduct | Science | AAAS – Science

How AI Reshapes Vocabulary: Unveiling the Most Used Terms Related to the Technology – Every Pixel  

How to tell if something is written by ChatGPT – Read Write 

Coursera Launches AI Plagiarism Detector – Inside Higher Ed 

I Tested Three AI Essay-writing Tools, and Here’s What I Found – Life Hacker

New study on AI-assisted creativity reveals an interesting social dilemma – Psypost  

How to cite ChatGPT in APA Style –  American Psychological Association

Is ChatGPT a Reliable Ghostwriter? - The Journal of Nuclear Medicine 

AI Is Coming for Amateur Novelists. That’s Fine. - The Atlantic

National Novel Writing Month faces backlash over allowing AI: What to know – Washington Post

How Do You Change a Chatbot’s Mind?, I discovered a new world of A.I. manipulation. – New York Times 

If journalism is going up in smoke, I might as well get high off the fumes: confessions of a chatbot helper – The Guardian  

College Writing Centers Worry AI Could Replace Them – EdSurge

No laughing matter - how AI is helping comedians write jokes – BBC

What Teachers Told Me About A.I. in School - New York Times

13 Webinars this week about AI, Journalism, Photography, Marketing, Sports & More

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Mon, Sept 10 - Photography 101: How to Take Your Marketing to the Next Level

What: Learn the basic fundamentals of photography, how to take professional looking photos whether you are using a smart phone or camera, and some tips on how to market your services and products through high-quality photographs.

Who: Tyler Benninger, Video Production/Content Specialist, Duquesne University Small Business Development Center

When: 10 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: $45

Sponsor: The Pennsylvania Business One-Stop Shop

More Info

 

Sept 10, 11, 12 - Ask the newsroom: Policy impacts of the 2024 election

What: A series of virtual conversations and live Q&As unpacking the policy impacts of the 2024 election. We'll dive into the profound stakes and impacts of a Trump or Harris victory, exploring how such outcomes could shape the United States' most critical sectors.

When: 2:30 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Axios

More Info

 

Wed, Sept 11 - The Future of Marketing With Gen AI

What: Discover how businesses are preparing to invest in gen AI for their marketing projects and other advanced applications to get ahead. You’ll find out: The current level of understanding and everyday use of gen AI in marketing, and how adoption is expected to evolve, insights into how other marketers plan to invest in gen AI, and the primary concerns from your peers, and how organizations are navigating the current and upcoming regulatory requirements

Who: Jonathan Moran, Head of Martech Solutions Marketing; Lisa Loftis, in the webinar Lisa Loftis Principal Product Marketing Manager, SAS.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: AdWeek

More Info

 

Wed, Sept 11 - An AI-powered Data Journalism Interface

What: An AI-powered Data Journalism Interface iTromsø, a small Norwegian newsroom that is part of the Polaris Media group, has developed an AI-powered data journalism interface called "Djinn" to enhance its newsgathering and notifications process. The tool is designed to assist journalists in finding, analyzing and summarizing news stories efficiently.

Who: Lars Adrian Giske is the Head of AI at the local Norwegian newspaper iTromsø; Rune Ytreberg has worked with data-driven journalism for 30 years, first at the investigative newsroom in the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) and then at the daily business newspaper Dagens Næringsliv.

When: 11 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Online News Association

More Info

 

Wed, Sept 11 - Unlocking Subscription Success: Testing and Implementing Strategies with CDPs

What: We will dive into how leveraging a CDP can transform your subscription strategy. Discover how testing and learning with CDP insights can lead to better outcomes, whether it’s enhancing subscriber acquisition, boosting retention rates, or gaining efficiencies for decision making.  

Who: Kyle Whitfield of The Advocate

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Local Media Association

More Info

 

Wed, Sept 11 - Where AI Works Well in Gov

What: You’ll learn:  How responsible generative AI is impacting government. What barriers those organizations faced in adopting AI. Who was involved in implementing the technology.

Who: Ryan R. Eddy, Director, Homeland Security Programs, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Kevin Johnstun, Management and Program Analyst, Office of Educational Technology; Kevin Walsh, Director, Information Technology and Cybersecurity team, GAO.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: GovLoop

More Info

 

Thu, Sept 12 - Women in Journalism resilience masterclass with Rosie Nixon

What: How to identify transferable skills; Looking for new paths/roles - understanding your values; Tips for navigating a changing path - within journalism or other complementary roles.

Who: Journalist turned life coach, Rosie Nixon

When: 8 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Women in Journalism

More Info

 

Thu, Sept 12 - Bring your receipts: Explaining your reporting process

What: When journalists publish something they accept to be true — such as the results of an election — what happens when that statement feels like unsettled opinion to some of your audience? How can you as a journalist back up the facts you’re sharing? How can you show that your work is fair, accurate and trustworthy? In this training, we’ll walk through how to bring your reporting receipts by both explaining how and why you stand for facts, and by showing how you consistently source information and stories.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Trusting News

More Info

 

Thu, Sept 12 - How AI is reshaping the local political landscape

What: Our discussion will start with AP reporting of the 2022 mayoral race in Shreveport, Louisiana, where the incumbent mayor faced an AI-driven deepfake attack ad. Then we will explore how AI is reshaping the political landscape locally, especially in smaller races where resources are limited. Next, some common tells of manipulated and generative AI content. The session will include time for audience questions.  

Who: Dan Merica, investigative reporter, Associated Press; Ali Swenson, national political reporter, Associated Press; Beatrice Dupuy, newsgathering producer, Associated Press.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Associated Press

More Info

 

Thu, Sept 12 - What’s Changing in Sports Advertising

What: How to create seamless viewer experiences across multiple devices. Effective strategies for leveraging data to optimize ad placements. New strategies in maintaining viewer engagement and measuring success.

Who: Dina M. Roman, SVP, Global Advertising Sales & Operations; Fubo; Jennifer Laing, SVP, Operations, Causal IQ; Stephen Jepson President, Media Effectiveness, DISQO.

When: 1 pm, Eastern 

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: AdWeek

More Info

 

Thu, Sept 12 - There’s a Climate Change Angle on Every Beat

What: We will:  Connect you with reporters and editors who will share the habits and practices that generate leads. Talk about keeping our eyes open and the reporting methods that turn nascent ideas into coverage that makes climate change real and relevant.  

Who: The Los Angeles Times’ Tony Barboza; Canary Media’s Maria Gallucci; Nina Ignaczak at Planet Detroit and Delaney Dryfoos with The Lens.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Poynter and the Society of Environmental Journalists

More Info

 

Thu, Sept 12 - Navigating Social Media Management in an Election Year

What: A conversation around the challenges that marketing teams face during big world events and get actionable solutions and tips to navigate these complexities with confidence.

Who: Layla Revis Sprout Social; Nathan Jun Poekert Jun Social

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Sprout Social

More Info

 

Thu, Sept 12 - A Non-Scary Guide to AI

What: In this webinar you’ll hear big-picture ideas and hands-on, practical tips you can use today to improve your work using AI.  

Who: Sree Sreenivasan, CEO, Digimentors & former Chief Digital Officer of New York City, former Columbia Journalism School professor and associate dean.

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: College Media Association

More Info

Gratitude and Kindness

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A driver gives way to you at a place where there is no clear priority; you don’t acknowledge him. A fellow pedestrian steps into the road for you, or holds a door; you breeze on by. On holiday, you give your smallest and most worthless coins to the woman who has carefully cleaned your room. The stroppy teenager rails at the parent who scraped and saved for her. Commuters swarming in a London street never once raise their eyes to notice the splendour of a winter dawn.

No blood is spilt in any of these cases. Nothing is stolen. No one’s life is ruined. The prick of pain passes soon enough. Yet a tiny seed of ice has been sown, formed of arrogance on one side and, on the other, a sense of worthlessness. That ice spreads, and creeps into the veins and crevices of life: so that on the next occasion the door is not held, the room is cleaned carelessly, the car does not give way and the e-mail is never sent. As the opportunity for kindness is ignored, so the chance of reciprocal kindness, in the form of thanks, never comes to be. What is never given can never be repaid.

Ingratitude is the frost that nips the flower even as it opens, that shrivels the generous apple on the branch, that freezes the fountain in mid-flow and numbs the hand, even in the very act of giving. It is a sin of silence, absence and omission, as winter’s sin is a lack of light; a sin against charity, which otherwise warms the heart and, in the truest sense, makes the world turn.

Ann Wroe, writing in Intelligent Life

Chocolate Cake Resistance

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It is now a well-established proposition that both self-control and cognitive effort are forms of mental work. Several psychological studies have shown that people who are simultaneously challenged by a demanding cognitive task and by a temptation are more likely to yield to the temptation.

Imagine that you are asked to retain a list of seven digits for a minute or two. You are told that remembering the digits is your top priority. While your attention is focused on the digits, you are offered a choice between two desserts: a sinful chocolate cake and a virtuous fruit salad. The evidence suggests that you would be more likely to select the tempting chocolate cake when your mind is loaded with digits.

People who are cognitively busy are also more likely to make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situations. A few drinks have the same effect, as does a sleepless night. The self-control of morning people is impaired at night; the reverse is true of night people. Too much concern about how well one is doing in a task sometimes disrupts performance by loading short-term memory with pointless anxious thoughts.

The conclusion is straightforward: self-control requires attention and effort.

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

23 Articles about AI & Healthcare

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Scientists to use AI to analyse 1.6m brain scans to develop tool predicting dementia risk – The Guardian

How AI Could Help Reduce Inequities in Health Care – Harvard Business Review

5 Challenges of AI in Healthcare – Unite AI 

California nurses protest ‘untested’ AI as it proliferates in health care – Health Care Journalism

What accelerates brain ageing? This AI ‘brain clock’ points to answers - Nature

How AI and accelerated computing are transforming drug discovery – Financial Times

How Often Do LLMs Hallucinate When Producing Medical Summaries? -Medcity News

The testing of AI in medicine is a mess. Here’s how it should be done - Nature

A.L.S. Stole His Voice. A.I. Retrieved It. – New York Times

AI tool outperforms existing x-ray structure methods - Chemistry World

A robot just performed fully autonomous surgery on a live patient for the first time – BRG 

Artificial intelligence in scientific medical writing: Legitimate and deceptive uses and ethical concerns – Science Direct  

University of Florida researchers say they have developed a machine learning tool that can track the progression of Parkinson’s disease – Decrypt

MIT Researchers say they have developed an AI model that can accurately identify the stages of some types of breast cancer – MIT  

In Constant Battle With Insurers, Doctors Reach for a Cudgel: A.I. - New York Times 

First ‘bilingual’ brain-reading device decodes Spanish and English words -

Google Is Using A.I. to Answer Your Health Questions. Should You Trust It? - New York Times

Reconciling privacy and accuracy in AI for medical imaging – Nature

How A.I. Is Revolutionizing Drug Development - New York Times

OpenAI and Arianna Huffington are working together on an ‘AI health coach’ – The Verge

End-of-life decisions are difficult and distressing. Could AI help? – MIT Tech Review

States are writing their own rules for AI in health care  - Axios

The testing of AI in medicine is a mess. Here’s how it should be done - Nature

Let go of those who are already gone

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The sad truth is that there are some people who will only be there for you as long as you have something they need. When you no longer serve a purpose to them, they will leave. We rarely lose friends and lovers, we just gradually figure out who our real ones are. So when people walk away from you, let them go. Your destiny is never tied to anyone who leaves you. It doesn’t mean they are bad people; it just means that their part in your story is over.

Marc &  Angel Chernoff

8 Important Quotes About Ethical Issues Raised by AI

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Two voice actors say an A.I. company created clones of their voices without their permission. Now they’re suing. The company denies it did anything wrong. -New York Times 

A former high school athletic director was arrested after allegedly using AI to impersonate the school principal in a recording that included racist and antisemitic comments. The principal was temporarily removed from the school, and waves of hate-filled messages circulated on social media, while the school received numerous phone calls. -CBS News 

A researcher in Japan wanted to check if chatbots could make the same moral decisions when driving as humans. His results showed that LLMs and humans have roughly the same priorities, but some showed clear deviations… -Ars Technica 

An investment firm “is designing a facial recognition system for classroom management. Multiple cameras spread throughout the room will take attendance, monitor whether students are paying attention and detect their emotional states, including whether they are bored, distracted or confused.” –Inside Higher Ed 

So-called obituary pirates are “scraping and copying funeral-home websites. They're using AI for a new and lucrative tactic of creating YouTube videos and spammy websites out of the obits, capturing search traffic for people looking for information about the recently deceased.” -Business Insider 

The latest recipient of one of Japan's most prestigious literary awards, the Akutagawa Prize, has admitted to using AI to write parts of her novel -The Byte

When I tested My AI earlier this year, I told the app that I was a teenager — but it still gave me advice on hiding alcohol and drugs from parents, as well tips for a highly age-inappropriate sexual encounter. -Washington Post 

A central question about gen AI is whether using unattributed content written entirely by a machine — rather than by a human — counts as plagiarism. -Nature