I'm not sure I like it. I like it less when I can feel the hairs near my lips, so that's why I'm going for the c. Everett Koop look. Which, of course, brings this up:
There are people out there scrambling -- scrambling, mind you -- to find ways to use generative artificial intelligence for good. I concede there may be good uses for the technology out there, but on the surface it appears what two professors at Carnegie Mellon University is not the approach we should take.
Writing is messy. It can be difficult, even for seasoned writers. But writing is a muscle that improves with use and use and use, and I'm not convinced "lightening the cognitive load" in the early stages of writing by having artificial intelligence write for us is the way to go.
It all comes down to approach, I suppose. If the students these professors have are looking at what artificial intelligence writes and learning from it, really dissecting it, I suppose that works. But the same can be accomplished through examples of non-AI writing and a lot of practice.
What I fear with AI is that students will see that easing of the cognitive load and not learn anything from it but how to manage AI prompts to get what they need. The skills in writing don't develop naturally as students continue to take the easy, AI way out of writing problems.
From the article on EdSurge:
A key feature of their new tool is called “Notes to Prose,” which can take loose bullet points or stray thoughts typed by a student and turn them into sentences or draft paragraphs, thanks to an interface to ChatGPT.
“A bottleneck of writing is sentence generation — getting ideas into sentences,” Ishizaki says. “That is a big task. That part is really costly in terms of cognitive load.”
In other words, especially for beginning writers, it’s difficult to both think of new ideas and keep in mind all the rules of crafting a sentence at the same time, just as it’s difficult for a beginning driver to keep track of both the road surroundings and the mechanics of driving.
“We thought, ‘Can we really lighten that load with generative AI?” he says.
I think AI has roles in generating outlines and assisting with brainstorming -- as long as users are willing to look at what AI offers with a critical eye and does the rest of the work without assistance.
Any AI-related shortcut, I fear, will become just that: a shortcut, taken every time a writing problem arises, without developing the underlying skill the shortcut eliminates. I've written about that before, and I think this example coming from the programming world beautifully illustrates the uses and pitfalls AI brings to writers. AI can have its place in the toolbox, but if AI becomes the beginning and end of a writer's work, we've lost.
Alexia is on her way home from North Dakota for a friend's wedding. She called Isaac a little after 7 this morning reporting that her van was smoking. He suspected she was out of coolant, and suggested she pull over and check. She was indeed out. She refilled her radiator a few times and managed to limp her way to Big Timber.
In the meantime, Michelle and Isaac put together a rescue mission. Isaac packed up his tools and they met her at Big Timber, where she finally was able to spot the coolant leak. It turned out it was a plastic splitter than had cracked. Isaac couldn't reach it, but knew what needed to be done. He directed Lexi, who could get her hands down to where the broken part was, to remove the hose clamps, hoses, and the broken part. They got a new splitter put back in and are now on their way home. Hoping they get here about midnight or so tonight.
Grateful for a son who knows how to do things and for a daughter brave enough to keep on keeping on, following her brother's long-distance instructions, to get her home.
Accounts vary, but it sounds like they spent about $50 on tools and parts, with another $60 for coolant. This could turn out very well, and I'm grateful for this family's ability to help each other out.
Latest report at 7:06 pm is they're just finishing up dinner in Bozeman, and that Lexi's van is doing just fine.
Update 8:13 pm, corrections are coming in from Isaac:
Richard and Robert Sherman pretty much wrote the music of my childhood.
I grew up pretty indifferent to most music. I liked classical music because my Dad liked it. Pop music was pretty much unknown territory, except for a few things that penetrated my skull from the AM radio in the kitchen.
Then there was Disney. Lots of Disney music.
Most of that due to Richard and Robert Sherman.
Richard Sherman passed away today at the age of 95, following his brother Robert who died in 2012.
I guess maybe I thought both of them had already passed on. Anyway, thank you, Brothers Sherman, for making my childhood more musical than it might have been.
Gotta say this: I learned a lot about how Gemini prepped NASA for the Apollo missions watching this documentary.
Apollo, of course, is what gets the most attention. But Gemini, wow, they spent a lot of time learning how to do what made Apollo successful. I figured they'd done all that before Apollo 11 landed on the Moon -- but clearly the training mission went on for much longer than that.
If you've got several hours, watch this, and the one that precedes it. Highly recommended.
Thusfar, it appears the Bonneville GOP's official ballot candidates are going 1 for 10, with only Randy Neal ahead in his race. Yes, the "night is young," as they say. But these are small races with small numbers, so it's not likely we'll see much change here.
Two other, less local races in which the GOP picked official, we recommend candidates, they're going 0 for 2. There's another race where I don't know if the GOP had an official candidate, but it's a close race, probably the closest of the night. I hope the result in that one stays as it is now.
UPDATE: Overnight, the results did not change.
So the 2024 primaries are over. It remains to be seen whether the guy whose sign I have in the front yard wins his race, but I have high hopes.
What's even better: The election is over and I won't have to throw away reams of election-related propaganda from the mail.
This video from Ace Ventura, of course, sums up the primary election experience for the most part.
Time will tell whether my election observation comes true: Typically, those who win take their campaign signs down pretty quickly, while the losers let them linger as if to chide us for not voting for them.
I hope I see a lot of Bryan Smith signs.
