This slash page is meant to cover how I use AI. But I don’t use AI. Not really. I’ll get to that in a moment. Instead this is more of a little page about how we need to find things we want to do, then practise them and get good., rather than letting the machines take away the things we enjoy.

So, despite being an AI researcher for a few decades now, studying Knowledge Representation, Reasoning, and Communication, all under the auspices of “Argumentation Theory” and “Computational Argumentation”, I don’t use AI. At least not in the modern sense of using chat-interfaces to large language models. The main reason for this is that most of the core things that LLMs are being used to do at the moment are things that I enjoy doing for myself.

I enjoy writing, thinking, solving problems, coding, and building stuff. I know that some of these activities are now being performed by various ML tools, for example, LLMs generating text, or generating ideas, or suggesting solutions to problems, or generating code. Hell, connect the LLM to a 3D-printer and perhaps it’ll also start building stuff. If I get a tool to do everything for me, or at least all of the parts that I find interesting and rewarding, what’s left for me to do?

I do know that the more I write, the better I get at it, the more I develop my own voice and my own ability to communicate information. Similarly,when solving problems, the more I practise, the better I get.

I even have things that I do deliberately that I am not very good at. Each year, give or take, more or less, I try to start something new, to cultivate a beginner mind. For example, a few years back I started doing a lot of work with module synths. That lead to wanting to improve me electronics skills. Most recently I decided that I wanted to finally be able to solve a Rubik’s Cube. Some of these things I end up being not bad at over time, with practise. Some of them I’ll never be as good at as I’d like to be. The point for me is that life is growth. Growth of knowledge and skills is one thing that I do have some control of, especially in an increasingly weird world.

The trick seems to be in choosing things to do that you enjoy and want to do, so the question becomes, if you’re having to do lots of things that you don’t enjoy and don’t want to get better at, and are trying to replace doing those unwanted tasks with tools that can do it for you, what is it you really want to do with your short time here…?