I’ve been going over the tools that I use and dealing with the uncertainty that generative artificial intelligence brings with it. It hasn’t been easy.
AI Tools I Use – and How.
I’ve used ChatGPT 4 for general queries, research, and finding connections between things that aren’t obvious.
Recently, I’ve found that Perplexity.AI is much more useful for how I generally use generative AI. The citations are a very important aspect for me, allowing me to curate sense from what is often nonsense in traditional search engine results1.
ChatGPT4’s subscription gets me use of DALL-E, which is pretty decent for image generation for blog posts. DeepAI.org I use for better quality images, though DeepAI tends to not be able to generate more obscure things that I would like despite all that it offers.
I draw the line at using generative AI to create content: Everything I write is written by me. I’ll quote a generative AI at times, but it’s pointed to as a quote, and increasingly, an image with the relevant text.
I have a low opinion of those that use generative AI for writing for various reasons.
Writing
I’ve moved away from using Google Docs and other cloud services for things I write, not that I ever really stored writing there, but it was also a possibility.
I used to use LibreOffice but it became cumbersome for writing for me, so I moved to Scrivener. That was a pretty big step for me because Scrivener is proprietary and not Free Software/Open Source, something I advocate the use of. I wrestled with it, and decided for writing, until something free and open turns up, I’ll stick with Scrivener.
Image Editing
Most people I know who edit images do so professionally, and they’re all about Adobe Photoshop and related offerings. I have managed to stick with the Gimp and for quick edits, Paint.net.
Websites
As I write this, the site has managed WordPress hosting through WordPress.com. Because of the recent selling of data by the owners of WordPress.com, Automattic, and how it was handled, I’m considering other options.
I shouldn’t have to unvolunteer myself after having been volunteered by a host. That’s just crappy.
In looking around, I am seeing more cost effective ways for me to continue web presences. When I started on WordPress.com, I was very tired of constantly having to wrangle issues with Drupal. When I want to write a post, I don’t want to get sidetracked by a bunch of stuff that the content management system needs to have done. In that regard, WordPress.com has worked well for me.
I’m presently looking at hosting and content management system options, which include self-hosted WordPress, managed hosting WordPress sites, Drupal 102, and Django.
At the core of this is having as much control over what I write as possible. How the data sale Automattic has done with WordPress.com and Tumblr has debased the trust I had in the platform, and trust is not something that comes easily. Also, the tiered payments are not that great when one looks at what one can do outside of WordPress.com. They are pricing themselves out of a market.
Social Media
I’ve moved off of Facebook and all offerings by Meta, and I’ve moved away from centralized social media and generally use Mastodon now to connect to the Fediverse. It’s been a good move, overall, and despite not being connected with as many people, the number of visitors I have on the websites has increased slightly and has become more geographically diverse.
Because of the training of AIs with user data, and how much information is collected on those centralized sites, I simply don’t wish to be a part of them.
LinkedIn I’m somewhat active on – once a day – just to look at what people would pay me for because of bills. Historically, LinkedIn has never gotten me jobs or contracts, and I’m careful not to write full posts on LinkedIn because I’m pretty sure Microsoft is training it’s generative AI models on what people write there. I don’t know that they used linked content, so that’s a risk.
I have paid for Google One, but I don’t store anything I consider of real value there.
If your what you write has value, people will use it, and that I have no issue with. When they use it and demand you pay for stuff you helped contribute to, there is a principle involved.
Programming
Yeah, I code. Most people don’t see it, but off and on I get a wild idea and run with it even if it goes nowhere, particularly because that ‘nowhere’ is not a place my mind has gone before. Python has become my weapon of choice, though I still work with C, C++, .Net and PHP when I have to.
Overall Philosophy.
The guidelines I use at the time of this writing are pretty simple.
- If there is a Free/Open Source tool for the job that is workable, work with it3.
- What I create shouldn’t be used to train an AI unless I’m compensated. Granted, that’s like a mosquito floating on it’s back with an erection demanding the draw bridge be raised, but I think it’s important to draw that line. I think we all should. So I do.
- Give credit where credit is due because I would like to be credited with things, not out of some narcissistic trait but because I like discussing ideas and making them better and the only way to be able to do that is through being known for that. Our human creativity is not found by looking at one thing one way but by looking at many things many ways.
- Be human.
- I never would have thought I would use a phrase like, “traditional search engine results”, for I remember when search engines were cute kittens and now they have become ill-tempered cats always asking for food. ↩︎
- Drupal is an odd one. It’s been steered very hard toward the Enterprise, and it’s unforgiving between major version releases which is why I tend to steer people away from it these days unless they have a big budget or really need it’s abilities out of the box. Most people don’t. I don’t think I do, presently, but to do some of the things I want in the future, I may have to reach for it. ↩︎
- Using Scrivener undercuts this, but Scrivener gives me so much of what I like for writing the book stuff that I went that route. ↩︎