Years of corporate living, reinforced by people who could shut down my technology, taught me to update operating systems and apps with a healthy degree of skepticism. I will eat a cookie from the first batch of a new recipe with little concern. I will not download a new operating system, office productivity program, or unsolicited app update until the pros prove that bugs won’t push me into a mess far beyond my problem-solving skills.

AI, whether best friend or evil three-horned creature, now asks what I want to write when I open a blank screen, makes suggestions about words that might strengthen my writing, nitpicks commas. This is all more irritating when what I am writing is purely creative mutterings. Nothing like a computer to correct how leaves moving in a breeze look like when I am the one sitting in a garden chair staring at trees swaying. AI questioning if the language of a three-year-old character is authentic when I am quoting my granddaughter is as aggravating as having a younger literary agent say I don’t know what a man her father’s age is like. I’m lucky enough to be married to a man of that age.

Now Apple, Google, Microsoft and all the big players have snuck their AI tools into the process of writing a friendly note to myself, a one-paragraph bio, a blog, a character sketch, a chapter. If I don’t remember to disinvite the AI crew, it is as welcome as having a client read rough copy over my shoulder or chairing the group writing of an executive overview. 

With this blog complete, I’ll give AI an opportunity to do a quick edit and appreciate the results. The newest version of the “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” series could be “If you Give an AI Program a Few Keystrokes.” Please go speak amongst your AI creators until I call you to my table.