Your writing, and the process behind it, is beautiful and unmistakably you.
Your description of how you arrive at a finished piece is helpful, too. I’m not nearly as organized, but I am inspired by what you describe. I use my “AI assistant” mostly for grunt work (read this, help me generate a prompt to create an image that looks like my brand, etc.) but I also run my later stage drafts through what I call my “rubric.”
I ask Perplexity to grade me on the things I strive for in all my essays: a strong opening hook, a clear thesis, narrative cohesion, lyricism, and the feeling, as you’re reading, that I’m threading seemingly disparate things into one woven tapestry.
I have also found, like all AI, including Substack’s new detector, it’s prone to mistakes. I wrote a poem in high school and recently found a handwritten copy. I typed it out and uploaded it as a draft, and Pangram told me it was largely written by AI. Nope. Just angsty, teenage me, decades before the tool existed to accuse me.
Which makes me think about assistance more broadly. Renaissance masters had workshops — Leonardo’s apprentices ground pigments, prepared panels, and painted whole passages under his direction. Early in my own career, I worked for a civil rights scholar at the Brookings Institution and for a law professor who had clerked on the Third Circuit — both were brilliant, accomplished women. I did substantial research and writing for them, and in both cases my work informed theirs. Were they cheating? I think not.
I suspect AI will end up like many technologies before it — regarded eventually the way we now regard electricity, one more quiet improvement that freed humans to focus on other things. Including art.
Keep telling your stories, the ones that are unmistakably yours. I so appreciate this peek behind the scenes, your process, but above all, your work.
Thank you so much Lauren! I also appreciate getting a quick peek into your creativity process as well through your comment. I have been so curious to load up something like my Master’s thesis from many years ago to see what Panagram would make of that! LOL I have to agree that I think eventually the dust will settle and AI will become ubiquitous. I greatly appreciate your encouragement to keep on writing. It did get me down for about a week, I have to admit. But I have stories to tell so onward I go!
Wow. I've just read this in one sitting. There are so many truths you wrote, Fran, I can't even begin to quote all of them. Thank you for writing this.
Thank you for your feedback Jane. The thing that is frustrating to me is the percentage is not providing that transparency. My heart and hours of my time each week go into what I create. The percentage does not at all reflect that.
Thank you for this, Fran. It resonated with me because my own use of AI has developed in a similar way, although I write about places rather than family history.
My work begins with curiosity about a particular town, village, building or landscape, and so the researching begins. It may be that I have seen a village in a TV documentary, or read about a place online or in the press. AI is extremely useful in that early stage. It finds some answers, but it also helps to discover the next questions. One fact suggests another search, an unexpected connection appears, and I am soon some distance down the inevitable rabbit hole.
But, as you describe here, that is only the beginning. I still have to investigate the trail, find reliable and accurate sources, and verify what is actually supported by evidence. I also decide what is worth including and what to leave behind, perhaps as a later Note. I have found that AI can make connections I had not noticed, but it can also make connections that simply aren't justified. The judgement has to remain mine.
It also helps me later to shape an unruly collection of facts into a narrative which has a flow, an arc if you like. I can tell it what I am trying to do, react to what comes back, reject phrases that don't sound like me, change the emphasis, and keep working at it until the piece feels right. Quite often I will push back and say, ‘That just does not fit the story of this place.’
Your distinction between the work that you bring and what AI is able to bring struck a chord. More and more I think that asking whether something is “AI-written” tells us remarkably little. The much more interesting question is: what part did AI play in the process, and what intellectual and creative decisions remained with the writer?
I especially liked your point about AI helping you ask “what am I missing?” For me, that may be one of its most valuable uses. That, and being able to tell the stories of a place much more quickly than I would be able to without help.
Thank you so much for your insightful comments Marty and for sharing how you use AI in your work! I look forward to connecting and reading your articles. I really enjoyed the research I did recently on Monticello, NY and found researching a specific location like that to be so helpful in understanding my family story more fully.
AI might help us organise the evidence, spot a pattern or find a better way of expressing something, but it cannot replace the years spent gathering those records or the human connection we bring to them.
For me, that's where responsible genealogy storytelling sits too, the evidence has to remain ours to question, and the story ours to stand behind. I especially liked “The thinking is mine.” That pretty much sums it up.
omg Fran ! I can't (yet I can) believe Daria's words had such an impact on both of us. There are so many things in here I resonate with. This line in particular got me good: "It teaches us to look at each other’s writing and ask did you cheat instead of what were you trying to say." And I am SO much more interested in the latter :) So glad you wrote this.
When I read your piece the other day I, too, was surprised to see that Daria’s article provided you with inspiration! I am really glad you decided to publish yours.
My high school English students kept a portfolio with all their writing in it, and the end of the semester evaluation was based partly on their writing process and what they discovered about themselves over the course of the semester -- and your thoughtful process piece is an excellent example of how we all should take a step back on our work and the insights we need to keep writing. Thanks for sharing it.
It is a nice article. My father was a computer programmer beginning in 1960, and I grew up walking around vacuum tubes and transistors. Most of my family works in tech related professions. It seems to me that it would be the height of hypocrisy if I did not use AI.
Technology has always shaped our lives, and we learn lessons from the past. In the seventeenth century the Levelers protested when landowners enclosed common land with hedges and pushed ordinary people off the land in England. In the early nineteenth century, the Luddites took hammers to the new power looms in the factories. Each moment shows how new technology arrives and changes things, sometimes for the worse. A hedge excluded people from common land in the seventeenth century. A power loom replaced the work of hand loom weavers and increased production twenty-fold. The lesson I think is that we need to make sure those people who are impacted receive compensation.
Using AI worries people in the same way those earlier technologies did. Some writers and creators do not like AI because they see it as cheating. Yet for many people AI helps them produce content that is better than what they could do alone. Your article illustrates this throughout. We are going through change, just as we did with the internet, and it will take time to settle. It is good to talk through these things.
Thank you for your feedback John! I, too, have an IT background and have always been an early adopter of new technologies. I appreciate your look back through history on how tech has shaped over lives. I do think eventually this heated discussion will subside. Unfortunately, until then, it is bringing a negative vibe to a platform I have come to really enjoy. My hope is the dust settles soon and we can all get back to doing what we love.
I'm not sure I think there will always be folks who don't like AI. It's kind of like my preference for fountain pens, I like to use them because my handwriting is legible, and I love what the pen does for my handwriting. I literally want to go and sit down and write letters to people. It's compelling. Whereas using a biro, well let's just say I'm always disappointed. So, I can see that writers and creators prefer not to use AI. On the point there was a really good article in the NYTimes from a Yale English professor, who did a good job of explaining why using AI wasn't for them, but didn't directly criticize other people. I think my point, and maybe yours is just because you don't like something, doesn't mean you should rain on other people's parade.
Yes exactly. We all have many different kinds of tools and processes at our disposal, and we should be able to decide what works best for us. Ultimately, it comes down to whether you like the content that was created, regardless of the methods used, or you don't. Use your own discretion to decide, not an AI tool.
Your writing, and the process behind it, is beautiful and unmistakably you.
Your description of how you arrive at a finished piece is helpful, too. I’m not nearly as organized, but I am inspired by what you describe. I use my “AI assistant” mostly for grunt work (read this, help me generate a prompt to create an image that looks like my brand, etc.) but I also run my later stage drafts through what I call my “rubric.”
I ask Perplexity to grade me on the things I strive for in all my essays: a strong opening hook, a clear thesis, narrative cohesion, lyricism, and the feeling, as you’re reading, that I’m threading seemingly disparate things into one woven tapestry.
I have also found, like all AI, including Substack’s new detector, it’s prone to mistakes. I wrote a poem in high school and recently found a handwritten copy. I typed it out and uploaded it as a draft, and Pangram told me it was largely written by AI. Nope. Just angsty, teenage me, decades before the tool existed to accuse me.
Which makes me think about assistance more broadly. Renaissance masters had workshops — Leonardo’s apprentices ground pigments, prepared panels, and painted whole passages under his direction. Early in my own career, I worked for a civil rights scholar at the Brookings Institution and for a law professor who had clerked on the Third Circuit — both were brilliant, accomplished women. I did substantial research and writing for them, and in both cases my work informed theirs. Were they cheating? I think not.
I suspect AI will end up like many technologies before it — regarded eventually the way we now regard electricity, one more quiet improvement that freed humans to focus on other things. Including art.
Keep telling your stories, the ones that are unmistakably yours. I so appreciate this peek behind the scenes, your process, but above all, your work.
Thank you so much Lauren! I also appreciate getting a quick peek into your creativity process as well through your comment. I have been so curious to load up something like my Master’s thesis from many years ago to see what Panagram would make of that! LOL I have to agree that I think eventually the dust will settle and AI will become ubiquitous. I greatly appreciate your encouragement to keep on writing. It did get me down for about a week, I have to admit. But I have stories to tell so onward I go!
Wow. I've just read this in one sitting. There are so many truths you wrote, Fran, I can't even begin to quote all of them. Thank you for writing this.
P.S. I'm glad my essay contributed to this piece!
Thank you so much Daria! ❤️
p.s. glad I discovered your work
The issue is not whether people use AI to write or not ... The issue is one of transparency. Thank you for your explanation of how and why you write.
Thank you for your feedback Jane. The thing that is frustrating to me is the percentage is not providing that transparency. My heart and hours of my time each week go into what I create. The percentage does not at all reflect that.
The thing is, it is measuring writing only … Not the thought and care that sits behind what is written. That is why your explanation is important.
Thank you for this, Fran. It resonated with me because my own use of AI has developed in a similar way, although I write about places rather than family history.
My work begins with curiosity about a particular town, village, building or landscape, and so the researching begins. It may be that I have seen a village in a TV documentary, or read about a place online or in the press. AI is extremely useful in that early stage. It finds some answers, but it also helps to discover the next questions. One fact suggests another search, an unexpected connection appears, and I am soon some distance down the inevitable rabbit hole.
But, as you describe here, that is only the beginning. I still have to investigate the trail, find reliable and accurate sources, and verify what is actually supported by evidence. I also decide what is worth including and what to leave behind, perhaps as a later Note. I have found that AI can make connections I had not noticed, but it can also make connections that simply aren't justified. The judgement has to remain mine.
It also helps me later to shape an unruly collection of facts into a narrative which has a flow, an arc if you like. I can tell it what I am trying to do, react to what comes back, reject phrases that don't sound like me, change the emphasis, and keep working at it until the piece feels right. Quite often I will push back and say, ‘That just does not fit the story of this place.’
Your distinction between the work that you bring and what AI is able to bring struck a chord. More and more I think that asking whether something is “AI-written” tells us remarkably little. The much more interesting question is: what part did AI play in the process, and what intellectual and creative decisions remained with the writer?
I especially liked your point about AI helping you ask “what am I missing?” For me, that may be one of its most valuable uses. That, and being able to tell the stories of a place much more quickly than I would be able to without help.
Thank you so much for your insightful comments Marty and for sharing how you use AI in your work! I look forward to connecting and reading your articles. I really enjoyed the research I did recently on Monticello, NY and found researching a specific location like that to be so helpful in understanding my family story more fully.
You are welcome. It is ever much more layered when place and people share the same stories.
AI might help us organise the evidence, spot a pattern or find a better way of expressing something, but it cannot replace the years spent gathering those records or the human connection we bring to them.
For me, that's where responsible genealogy storytelling sits too, the evidence has to remain ours to question, and the story ours to stand behind. I especially liked “The thinking is mine.” That pretty much sums it up.
Thank you Paul. I appreciate you reading this article through to the end. It was a long one! LOL
omg Fran ! I can't (yet I can) believe Daria's words had such an impact on both of us. There are so many things in here I resonate with. This line in particular got me good: "It teaches us to look at each other’s writing and ask did you cheat instead of what were you trying to say." And I am SO much more interested in the latter :) So glad you wrote this.
When I read your piece the other day I, too, was surprised to see that Daria’s article provided you with inspiration! I am really glad you decided to publish yours.
♡♡♡ ♡♡♡ ♡♡♡
My high school English students kept a portfolio with all their writing in it, and the end of the semester evaluation was based partly on their writing process and what they discovered about themselves over the course of the semester -- and your thoughtful process piece is an excellent example of how we all should take a step back on our work and the insights we need to keep writing. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks so much Rob! That means a lot coming from you. I get such value out of your articles.
It is a nice article. My father was a computer programmer beginning in 1960, and I grew up walking around vacuum tubes and transistors. Most of my family works in tech related professions. It seems to me that it would be the height of hypocrisy if I did not use AI.
Technology has always shaped our lives, and we learn lessons from the past. In the seventeenth century the Levelers protested when landowners enclosed common land with hedges and pushed ordinary people off the land in England. In the early nineteenth century, the Luddites took hammers to the new power looms in the factories. Each moment shows how new technology arrives and changes things, sometimes for the worse. A hedge excluded people from common land in the seventeenth century. A power loom replaced the work of hand loom weavers and increased production twenty-fold. The lesson I think is that we need to make sure those people who are impacted receive compensation.
Using AI worries people in the same way those earlier technologies did. Some writers and creators do not like AI because they see it as cheating. Yet for many people AI helps them produce content that is better than what they could do alone. Your article illustrates this throughout. We are going through change, just as we did with the internet, and it will take time to settle. It is good to talk through these things.
Thank you for your feedback John! I, too, have an IT background and have always been an early adopter of new technologies. I appreciate your look back through history on how tech has shaped over lives. I do think eventually this heated discussion will subside. Unfortunately, until then, it is bringing a negative vibe to a platform I have come to really enjoy. My hope is the dust settles soon and we can all get back to doing what we love.
I'm not sure I think there will always be folks who don't like AI. It's kind of like my preference for fountain pens, I like to use them because my handwriting is legible, and I love what the pen does for my handwriting. I literally want to go and sit down and write letters to people. It's compelling. Whereas using a biro, well let's just say I'm always disappointed. So, I can see that writers and creators prefer not to use AI. On the point there was a really good article in the NYTimes from a Yale English professor, who did a good job of explaining why using AI wasn't for them, but didn't directly criticize other people. I think my point, and maybe yours is just because you don't like something, doesn't mean you should rain on other people's parade.
Yes exactly. We all have many different kinds of tools and processes at our disposal, and we should be able to decide what works best for us. Ultimately, it comes down to whether you like the content that was created, regardless of the methods used, or you don't. Use your own discretion to decide, not an AI tool.
Couldn't agree more.