We may see a Star Trek computer in our lifetime🖖

The Ethics of AI in Blogging: Should We Allow Machines to Write Our Content?

The rise of artificial intelligence is changing many industries, including blogging and content creation. AI tools like ChatGPT can now generate entire blog posts and articles at the touch of a button. This has sparked an ethical debate - should we allow machines to write content meant for human audiences?

On one hand, AI promises several benefits for bloggers and content creators. It can help generate drafts and ideas far faster than humans could. For bloggers who need to produce a lot of content regularly, AI could significantly boost their productivity. It also lowers the barrier for creating high-quality content, allowing more people to become bloggers and citizen journalists.

However, there are also risks associated with over-relying on AI for content creation. Here are some key ethical concerns:

Originality and Plagiarism

AI tools work by analyzing vast datasets of existing writing and learning to imitate styles and patterns. This means AI-generated text risks being unoriginal or plagiarizing others' work. Even if the AI doesn’t copy verbatim, its output could still fail to bring a unique perspective. This goes against the expectations of readers who want authentic, original content from bloggers.

Quality and Accuracy

Unlike human writers, AI lacks real-world knowledge and reasoning skills. As a result, its writing could contain false information, unverified facts, or logical errors. This becomes especially problematic for content on specialized or technical topics. Relying solely on AI could erode the accuracy and quality that readers expect from expert bloggers.

Transparency

Many feel bloggers should be transparent if they use AI writing assistants. However, currently there are no standards or regulations requiring disclosure of AI use. Readers could be misled into thinking a blog’s content was written by a human when it was actually machine-generated. This violates principles of authenticity and transparency.

Economic Impact

Widespread adoption of AI content could disrupt the economics of blogging. For example, some estimates suggest AI could replace up to 20% of content marketing jobs. Over-reliance on AI could put professional freelance writers and other content creators out of work. This economic impact needs to be handled responsibly.

Undermining Human Creativity

Some argue AI-generated content lacks the creativity, style, and voice that human writers bring. While AI can expertly imitate writing, it cannot yet truly understand emotions or inject a unique personality into text. Prioritizing machine-written content could undermine the aspects of blogging that celebrate human creativity.

So where should we draw the ethical lines for AI in blogging? Here are some best practices to consider:

Use AI tools thoughtfully as assistants, not full replacements for human writing. Allow humans to direct the creative process and provide quality control.

Edit and build upon AI-generated drafts instead of publishing the raw output untouched. Bring your own perspective.

Avoid using AI for specialized, technical topics. Focus on using it for more general or conversational blog content instead.

Disclose if a blog post was assisted by AI. Be transparent about the creative process.

Support and collaborate with human writers, editors, analysts who augment AI capabilities.

Develop regulations to ensure AI doesn’t undermine content quality, economics, or trust.

With the right framework, AI and humans can ethically co-create blog content that meets readers' expectations. But we must thoughtfully weigh the risks and responsibilities as AI capabilities grow. The principles of creativity, transparency and authenticity should drive how AI is integrated into blogging - not just efficiency and productivity.

A review of Faith in Age of Artificial Intelligence: Christianity Through the Looking Glass by Dan Scott

There is no question for me, as an Elder Millennial that witnessed the advent of the Internet, the introduction of the smartphone, and the rise & fall of social media, that a new era is upon us. We are, of course, only scratching the surface of the implication of newly unveiled “artificial intelligence” technologies.

Much of the handwringing does seem, at this point, to be a bit overblown. Still, no one can doubt the real economic and creative implications of machines that—dumb as they may be in reality—can convince, or very nearly convince, most people that they are humans.

No sphere of life or industry will be left untouched by AI, and as it gets better, ethical lines will become blurry, and our grasp on what we think is real will seem a bit slippery. Circumstances will emerge that would have seemed the stuff of far-out science-fiction only a decade ago. But here we are.

A much needed book

Dan’s Scott’s book, Faith in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Christianity Through the Looking Glass comes at the perfect time. We’re asking questions we didn’t know could be asked mere months ago.

From a Christian perspective, we are quickly finding that yesterday’s assumptions and answers will not do—but then, Scott helps us realize those answers were kind of new, anyways.

Contemporary Christianity has in many of its broadest circles lost touch with the kind of deep philosophical and theological reflect that characterized the early Christians. So, Scott wants to ground us the thinking of this ancient Christian community, a community that thought deeply, on similar (though not identical questions) of creation, consciousness, evil, incarnation, and the nature of divinity.

This, he does masterfully, synthesizing for the regular guy like me an immense amount of essential (and difficult) reading into 23 accessible chapters.

Faith in the Age of AI isn’t really a book about the specifics of artificial intelligence, per se. Instead, it’s a sort of guidebook to navigating the kind of world in which AI exists. Scott uses this emerging technology and the questions it raises to as a launch pad to explore the most important ideas we need to know, demonstrating along the way the viability of a Christianity grounded in ancient thought as a path into the future.

Ancient-future Christianity for the digital age

In the opening pages, Scott reminds us that “Christianity is…more than a community of people sharing spiritual experiences or affirming certain ethical and moral principles. Christianity is (or is intended to be) a philosophical school that trains us how to relate to and respond to reality.”

We are then presented with crash-courses in consciousness, theology proper, meaning, information-theory, the historical claims of Christianity, the nature of humanity and meaning, and more, all in conversation with Christian voices of the first five centuries.

The level of accessibility of all of this is impressive, but it never feels dumbed down. That said, plan on spending some time with this book. The ideas, while presented in a very understandable way, are big enough to cause one to pause for minutes, hours, or even days between chapters, pages, and paragraphs.

Deconstruction isn’t the end

I think this book could be a special help to those of us that have gone through the much lambasted and lamented “deconstruction” process. We find much here to help us “reconstruct” something different. This something will be different, no doubt, than what was always destined to be crushed by reality.

Dan Scott is providing a blueprint and materials to build back a faith that is strong, flexible, beautiful, and true.

This book isn’t just relevant. It’s needed.

Scott rightly observes, “Serious people often have serious questions.” Thankfully, he’s offering honest answers that leave room—and even encourages—further exploration rather than closing the door on humble inquiry.

If you care about how to move, grow, and flourish in the increasingly unfamiliar territory represented by the recent emergence of AI, and especially if you are curious as to how Christianity might speak into this, then this book is for you!

→ Get it on Amazon

Currently reading: Gardens of the Moon: Book One of The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson 📚

I have no idea what’s going on so far (it’s one of those books that just drops you in to world with little-to-no explanation) but it is interesting enough for me to keep going. If I’m not invested by the 25% mark, I’ll let it go.

Morning friends. Rivendell from The Country Squire in the pipe this morning while I wait for the pool repairman to take a look at our malfunctioning pump.

Another collection of newly released songs.

Thematically, this EP is ultimately about discovering rest that is possible in divine love as the absolute bedrock of reality, even as this rest requires the release of power/expectations/intentions/ego.

New music, a track about the inevitability of Love.

Happy birthday Amber! You are a gift to all who know you. Not only are you extremely competent at everything you do, you are so genuinely kind in how you carry out your daily life. You seriously care about faith, family, and friends but never take yourself too seriously. I learn so much from you as you lead at church, in our family, in your classroom. I could go on and on :) So grateful to celebrate another year of you being awesome!

After 4 weeks away it feels good to come back to this sacred space.

Freshly released: a contemplative kind of synthy song ➡️ Bandcamp link

This is fine

Bishop Scott is synthesizing and analyzing a tremendous amount of key ideas for the Christian community here. Really outstanding work.

I’ve been looking into e-ink writing tablets, mainly to save space on notebooks when on the go and for ease of organization.

Picked up the Kindle Scribe (1st Gen) on Prime Day, and it arrived this morning.

Preliminary thoughts:

• Truly this could be a game changer for me in terms of handling notebooks and PDFs with ease in one smaller, portable, and eye friendly device.

• I loved the 10 minutes or so I spent writing on it. Felt like magic.

• I’m glad to report most of software issues reported at launch have fixed

• There’s still room for improvement, of course. Already I wish there was on-device handwriting-to-type conversion.

• Quality control, especially, needs to be improved. While this has the look, feel, and features of premium device (and sold with the corresponding price), mine came with 1-2mm physical gap between edge of screen and metal frame/back. What a bummer!

Internet research reveals this is a common issue that probably doesn’t impact device performance too much.

Nevertheless I’m exchanging for a replacement in hopes I’ll get a unit with less potential to take on dust and moisture. This means I won’t get my hands back on one till Friday!

I hate to wait, because I am so stoked for this device will mean for my daily reading, writing, and notetaking habits!

2023-07-14 UPDATE: My replacement unit arrived, exact same build with the slight gap. I’m keeping it, after being assured that this is not uncommon and generally doesn’t affect performance. Overall customer service with Amazon has been good and I registered feedback on this, as I generally expect screen/bezel to connect seamlessly to the side of a device.

One thing (out of several) that elevates Dial of Destiny above the last installment in the Indian Jones franchise: it feels like a real movie. A real Indiana Jones movie.

We had a good time at Swingin' Safari Mini Golf this afternoon!

Family D&D night

I will just say I am thankful for the sanity and simplicity of micro.blog in the midst of all this Twitter/Threads/Meta drama.

I hope we get some new community members (not just “users”) out of it, and I look forward to seeing micro.blog grow even more in its ability to facilitate meaningful connections across the Internet.

Updated: site look and feel, now page

Deleted my Reddit account.

The forcing out of third-party apps seemed so egregiously wrong.

As much as I appreciate many of the communities on Reddit, there are alternatives that are less user-hostile (I’m realizing the old-school forums still exist).

Plus, it was beginning to be another time-killing feed in my life. Now it’s not on my phone and I’ll have to access via web as a lurker for any info there.

Now, I’m on Facebook and Instagram only (mainly to maintain a church presence for outreach and communication purposes, since so many people remain there), as far as mainstream social media goes.

Still on Micro.blog.

Exploring some classic forums.

Back at it

New beer to me, quite enjoyable. Good times with family by the pool.

Marvel Munchkin with the fam!

AI and its implications are of pastoral concern right now. As a priest, I’m already walking alongside others as they explore this topic.

TIL what synechdoche means.

Well, it’s happened. An entire church service generated by AI.