Excellent, my essays should make people at least uncomfortable. We cannot normalise certain patterns or behaviours. Because we cannot pretend forever. AI Hype is everything nowadays, but what’s beneath? No one is taking about it. and to be clear I’m not anti-AI. I’m avid learner and volunteer for Women in AI Spain. Just how we approach it, with zero criticism and common sense - simply frightens me and intrigues me.
“The work looks sharp. The person behind it is getting hollower.”
That line stayed with me. Not because of AI itself, but because so much of modern life now rewards performance over presence. The strange thing is that uncertainty honestly carried often feels more human than confidence perfectly performed.
Indeed, it’s a sign of modern life. Performance over presence. Collecting material goods over creating memories. We become more and more disconnected from ourselves. That race never ends, yet vast majority is not keen to slow down and ask why they are running in the first place.
Spot on, bravo. One thing I'll say for being a professional editor, it's always been your job to take responsibility, to sign off. On my first day on the newsdesk as a copy editor (we were called subs) I was told, "Your job is to take none of the credit and all of the blame."
I remember "errors introduced during the editing process" being given as the explanation for an absolutely atrocious mistake where we blamed the wrong rock band for a riot that led to fatalities. I refused three times to write the caption because the story was not verified. I was ordered to do it and obeyed. That was my gross error and I was happy to admit it.
That’s such an interesting perspective. I work in IT for Pharmaceutical Industry (Quality of Drug Manufacturing to be precise) and there is no margin for errors. Ultimately behind a drug production and commercialisation process there is tons of people who play an important role and no one gets the credit.
I imagine now, in AI slop era being professional editor must be challenging (least to say). Nobel prize winner in Literature (Olga Tokatczuk) admitted herself that she used AI support for her latest novel.
It’s very challenging. I’m busy editing a paper for a Japanese academic, it’s going to be presented verbally at a big conference in Canada. So I’m editing it very much for ease of reading.
It’s designated as a proofread, the whole paper has already been edited. But they’ve let an AI editing “assistant” loose on it and I’m now busy correcting all of its stupid errors. It’s so inappropriate to run this “assistant” with a document basically in its final state, it hacks away randomly, it’s not even consistent. Editing AI work is exhausting in a way I never anticipated. I swore I was not going to do any more of these “assistive” edits, but this was an interesting paper. I feel I’m saving it from being hacked to death by machine.
I wrote a post about this, how AI burned my brain out. I wasn’t kidding!
You share valid, important parts about confident rooms. Reading this piece makes me more concerned about the future.
Excellent, my essays should make people at least uncomfortable. We cannot normalise certain patterns or behaviours. Because we cannot pretend forever. AI Hype is everything nowadays, but what’s beneath? No one is taking about it. and to be clear I’m not anti-AI. I’m avid learner and volunteer for Women in AI Spain. Just how we approach it, with zero criticism and common sense - simply frightens me and intrigues me.
Such an important post, Lucy! Thank you for including the hedge 🥳 it’s a heavy tax
Thank you Rebecca! I believe many professionals are still unaware of wider AI impact on humans - that part that we don’t see in the news
“The work looks sharp. The person behind it is getting hollower.”
That line stayed with me. Not because of AI itself, but because so much of modern life now rewards performance over presence. The strange thing is that uncertainty honestly carried often feels more human than confidence perfectly performed.
Indeed, it’s a sign of modern life. Performance over presence. Collecting material goods over creating memories. We become more and more disconnected from ourselves. That race never ends, yet vast majority is not keen to slow down and ask why they are running in the first place.
Spot on, bravo. One thing I'll say for being a professional editor, it's always been your job to take responsibility, to sign off. On my first day on the newsdesk as a copy editor (we were called subs) I was told, "Your job is to take none of the credit and all of the blame."
I remember "errors introduced during the editing process" being given as the explanation for an absolutely atrocious mistake where we blamed the wrong rock band for a riot that led to fatalities. I refused three times to write the caption because the story was not verified. I was ordered to do it and obeyed. That was my gross error and I was happy to admit it.
That’s such an interesting perspective. I work in IT for Pharmaceutical Industry (Quality of Drug Manufacturing to be precise) and there is no margin for errors. Ultimately behind a drug production and commercialisation process there is tons of people who play an important role and no one gets the credit.
I imagine now, in AI slop era being professional editor must be challenging (least to say). Nobel prize winner in Literature (Olga Tokatczuk) admitted herself that she used AI support for her latest novel.
It’s very challenging. I’m busy editing a paper for a Japanese academic, it’s going to be presented verbally at a big conference in Canada. So I’m editing it very much for ease of reading.
It’s designated as a proofread, the whole paper has already been edited. But they’ve let an AI editing “assistant” loose on it and I’m now busy correcting all of its stupid errors. It’s so inappropriate to run this “assistant” with a document basically in its final state, it hacks away randomly, it’s not even consistent. Editing AI work is exhausting in a way I never anticipated. I swore I was not going to do any more of these “assistive” edits, but this was an interesting paper. I feel I’m saving it from being hacked to death by machine.
I wrote a post about this, how AI burned my brain out. I wasn’t kidding!