1. SARAH - I need to know your hyperlink trick. These are the things I know AI could help me with but don't know how to make it happen. So many hours hitting right click, link, paste *oops that was the wrong one,* find the tab, copy again, right click again, link, paste.
2. I'm so happy you named the roller coaster of "this is so helpful, I'm getting somewhere I wouldn't have otherwise, holy shit that's a lot of content, what do I do with this now." I am am in a very small non-profit and that tension of "I could ask a person to help with this but that person doesn't have time" is felt constantly. But sometimes I take my conversational habits of going down interesting rabbit holes with AI only to realize I spiraled into something totally new and out of my scope - in ten minutes or less.
I am reflexively and constitutionally AI-skeptical, and I acknowledge that my refusal to use it is a luxury belief; I am basically retired and don't have any use for it in my life. I am so lucky, then, to be in relationship with my 23 year old son, who is about to graduate with his masters in data science, so he has a very deep understanding of AI tools, their applications and their challenges. He also has quite a bit of internal ambivalence about working in this area and took several ethics classes in his program to work through some of these issues, as well as a lot of fears about being a young graduate trying to navigate the job market. Our conversations keep both of our minds open about benefits and concerns. He can fill in a lot of the gaps with educated, informed nuance that I would have otherwise filled in with reactionary denial, and he can hear me out on the ethical, philosophical and humanist concerns that I genuinely hold. I am determined to remain open as I age, and AI challenges me in that area, so I am so grateful to have a relationship that pushes me to think beyond my own reactions. I appreciated this episode because it had the same effect - to think past my own internal yuck response and consider the ways that people I respect might thoughtfully employ these tools in their own work.
Because it's the end of the school year and I've been SLOWLY grading Dual Credit argument papers, I was finally able to listen last night and I have SO many different and conflicting thoughts related to AI.
First, as a high school English teacher I see both the complete disdain for it (my teenager writer daughter HATES AI and often says the same things as your kids do about AI slop) and the dependence on it for completing work because kids are pressured to get certain grades and there is a serious mix of apathy, laziness, and inability to think for themselves. I have found myself using paper more and more this year, and this is in a composition class where computer work to write long papers is absolutely essential. (I'm constantly reminding them to show their work in the version history.) But if I can get my students off of computers, I do it. And they actually enjoy the days where they are told to put it all away and think out loud. Like many of my education peers, I am SO TIRED of having to check for AI in papers and students who are letting a computer think for them, but I also fear that we have set kids up for failure because we've created tech dependent children who do not know how to use technology as a tool for learning instead of a replacement for learning.
Second, as a writer myself I hate the idea of people using AI to create things. Period.
Third, my IT director husband uses AI tools all the time to problem solve, and tells me about getting into fights with AI because it's wrong or isn't doing what he wants it to do. But also, he's using it as a tool, not as a replacement, and it has allowed him to meaningfully increase output.
Finally, as a teacher with 25 years of experience behind me, Claude has been a GODSEND this year. I have been able to use Claude to create quizzes, review activities, and problem solve so much faster than ever before. Activities that would have taken me HOURS to compile with Google searches and looking through books, now take me less than an hour to complete, and they are better than I could have done on my own. Also, I have created activities I would never never done because I quite literally did not have the hours to spend to create them myself. BUT I also know my field. I've been doing it for years. I know what my students need and I know what I'm looking for and it's helping me gather that information faster than before. And then I tailor it to my students' needs. If I had been using Claude this way as a teacher during my first 10 years teaching, I wouldn't be as good of a teacher as I am today. We need to become experts in our fields before we start depending on these AI tools to do this gathering work for us so that we know what we are looking for and can quickly identify quality output.
It's complicated. I love the planet and want to do better by her, I'm tired of an education system that is draining away the ability to read and write well, I believe we need to be promoting ideas and critical thinking to save our democracy. AND I know that there are AI tools that will make our lives better but we're having the wrong tools forced upon us for the wrong reasons.
I think I’ve felt more pushback against you guys coming from inside me in this episode than anything I’ve listened to recently. Hearing you talk about AI, your use of it, your vision of it, the costs of it, over and over in my head, I heard, “Yeah, I don’t want that.” “I don’t want to pay any price for that, let alone this price.” “Maybe other people want that; I don’t want that.” It’s a very uncomfortable feeling that I think is good to sit with.
And my wife and mother, they largely talk like you two do about “this incredible tool” but I think I’m close enough to them that I can’t just sit with that discomfort—I have to stalk around the room and flex my fingers and grumble about that discomfort (when they aren’t watching).
It feels weird to be younger than all these people excited about progress. Like the classic “Kids these days!” formula has somehow reversed. In almost every moral formulation as a young person, you feel pretty confident that, “Nah, Gramps is clearly wrong, we shouldn’t use the N-word to talk about black people.” “Nah, that old politician is wrong; love is love.” But now we youths are the ones standing on our porches shaking our canes while the elderly run screaming for joy through the fields and the in-betweens are cautiously optimistic in their adoption.
Feeling like maybe I’m foolish and wrong sure is uncomfortable. I don’t like being made to feel that way even as I realize how valuable it is to sit with.
And it sure as heck gives me keen insight as to how the popular right has felt for decades about being lectured at by the left.
Again, not that you guys lecture; you’re very good, very thoughtful, very reasonable. But if I feel this way after listening to you, I can only imagine how my uncles felt listening to Obama. Or rather, how they felt listening to carefully cropped clips of him surrounded on all sides by indignant hyper-conservative commentary.
This is a wide-ranging comment. TLDR: Thanks for making me feel uncomfortable.
My 21 and 24 yr olds despise AI and refuse to use it. The younger one is in aerospace engineering classes and recently worked on a group project where 1 student used AI for their part. The rest of the group was really pissed and shared their feelings.
However, I also listened to a recent TED Radio episode where the doctor spoke about how AI could be used to scan the retina to look for markers of potential diseases in the heart and and elsewhere in the body. It has so many wonderful applications if used as a tool. But without guardrails and careful study, it could do so much harm.
Also, $1.776 B? Beth, I nearly lost my mind and started swearing loudly. I too went to see Suff's last weekend and left the theater wanting to drive to DC and scream at the gates! Instead, I went home and wrote more strongly worded letters to my congressman and senator.
Thank you. Thank you for describing every single experience I’ve had with AI as I’ve been tiptoeing into using it at my small nonprofit, where it is my job to write our responsible use policy. I have felt every single thing you both mentioned, and I am relieved someone else has felt it too. It was helpful to hear how you both are using and restricting your use of AI.
My son (finishing 8th grade) has had several really negative comments about some of his teacher's using AI for tests, assignments, etc. It really frustrates him. I need to dig deeper into the why with him and what it specifically frustrates him.
I work in IT and use AI when I'm researching an issue, I find it helps me quickly get through some of the troubleshooting guides that are out there and filter through thousands of update notes for our software to find the ones that are most relevant, but I also have spotted many times where it's just flat out wrong about something too.
I've also found it's useful in editing emails when I don't want to get fired :)
I don’t have a solution for a full Goldilocks summer, but for the first time ever since becoming a parent I took off this whole week from work just for myself. The rest of my family is still going about their daily routines of school and work. It’s basically a personal reset before summer officially hits in a few weeks, and so far it’s been glorious. Highly recommend (if your circumstances allow).
The $1776 slush fund. All I can think of to do about this shit is focus on trying to clean up the media environment somehow, but that'll never happen. The cult following that Trump still has is shocking to me. I can't believe these people who love him so much and believe he's infallible are getting the same information as I am. How do we address the media silos, propaganda, and obvious bias of our "news".
Much like the swing of younger generations towards registering as Independents, they're increasingly getting their news from independent sources. I think the generations coming up who are aging into the system will really disrupt our politics. And they'll be passionate voters, candidates, and digital natives who will never make it on to fox news or msnbc. They will never see them coming because they didn't start as a "young republican/democrat". I don't know if it'll all be good, but it will be interesting!!
I think you're right that the key to a Goldilocks summer is not working 😬
Although I've done some consulting work and taken community college classes, I've primarily been a SAHM since my six year old was born. This summer, my eight, six, and two year old will be home with me most days, but I schedule the summer in week-long blocks:
Week 1: Off
Week 2: Family trip (with my family followed by friends)
Week 3: Off
Week 4: Camps for the older two
Week 5: Off
Week 6: Camps for the older two
Week 7: Off
Week 8: Family trip (with my husband's family)
Week 9: Off
Week 10: Back to school for all of us (I start nursing school in the fall!)
The alternating weeks of activity vs. more unstructured time really seems to work for us. On "off" weeks we go to a museum/pool/splash park in the morning, come home for lunch/nap/quiet time, then will often do something lower key out of the house in the late afternoon. So there is still structure but also plenty of time for my kids to get bored. And I loooove being home for the entire month of July. It would need to be adapted for older kids, but a lot of the principles probably apply.
I adore summer. I have at least this summer and next before I go back to work so I'm savoring every minute!
My most "successful" (i.e. fulfilling) summers have had a similar rhythm, Stephanie. A nice balance between activity and down time. Intentional, but not over scheduled. I find I need some sort of parameters in order to feel more present in each day. Like, a "scheduled down time week" before or after a trip, camp, etc. really helps with enjoying those particular days, instead of feeling like I'm "wasting" the day.
And being able to stay more present in each day makes the summer feel more relaxed and enjoyable, and less of either a downhill spring toward school start or an endless drag of counting down those days.
Sarah, I am trying to figure out how you use AI to create links rather than copy and pasting the urls. I do this a lot in my work - for websites, emails to members, announcements, etc. when I am referring people to other resources. I do the CTRL-K thing so I don't have to highlight the text, but how are you getting the urls to link to text without copying the url?
Love the AI as assistive talk. I use it that way as well- and now can use that to describe it. Basically, I use it every day for 2 reasons- taking pictures of a semi-dead plant and asking it what to do, and asking it to help with recipes when the recipes I have don’t fit the ingredients I have (it invented a great mini banana muffin one for me with just two bananas where most recipes call for 3) or I want to lower sugar or spicy levels.
I would love if AI could make the data-entry, boring,time-consuming tasks go from 90 mins to 4 mins. So far, nope. 😂 I’m sure it’s possible, but it’s not happening…yet. Like if completing an expense report could be reduced like that?!? Freaking fantastic.
So much this. I asked ChatGPT to compare two lists of email addresses and tell me which email addresses were on both lists. It failed miserably, leaving me to do that manually. Meanwhile I'm expected to utilize it to outsource all of my creative/strategic work (marketing) which is the work I should be using my brain for.
Gemini also failed to compare two lists for me, then started making up "differences." When I responded literally "these are lies," it told me my lists were identical.
That’s my feeling. My company is pressuring us to outsource the cognitive component of our job (and conveniently upload lots of samples of our work product!) but not implementing AI in ways that would actually help with the pinch points of the job (file labeling, consistent formatting, form filling, etc.)
Listening to Beth and Sarah, I realized that one of the major differences in experience is that they - as small business owners - implement AI to their benefit, to streamline tasks. As an employee of a corporation, I view AI as extractive of the knowledge and work I produces, as well as a likely excuse that will be used to further increase the productivity demands that are expected of employees. I feel like I have a psychic vampire attached to me, and I don’t like it.
CAme across this just now as I’m researching something I’m writing…. as a writer, I want everyone who uses AI this way to have to disclose it and hopefully, readers will pass these books by in favor of books written by human authors:
“Chris Duffey, an AI evangelist at Adobe recently used AI to “co-author” a book titled “Superhuman Innovation: Transforming Business with Artificial Intelligence.”
In academic articles, authors are encouraged/required to state how they used AI in their research and writing. I find the notes interesting and helpful.
1. SARAH - I need to know your hyperlink trick. These are the things I know AI could help me with but don't know how to make it happen. So many hours hitting right click, link, paste *oops that was the wrong one,* find the tab, copy again, right click again, link, paste.
2. I'm so happy you named the roller coaster of "this is so helpful, I'm getting somewhere I wouldn't have otherwise, holy shit that's a lot of content, what do I do with this now." I am am in a very small non-profit and that tension of "I could ask a person to help with this but that person doesn't have time" is felt constantly. But sometimes I take my conversational habits of going down interesting rabbit holes with AI only to realize I spiraled into something totally new and out of my scope - in ten minutes or less.
I am reflexively and constitutionally AI-skeptical, and I acknowledge that my refusal to use it is a luxury belief; I am basically retired and don't have any use for it in my life. I am so lucky, then, to be in relationship with my 23 year old son, who is about to graduate with his masters in data science, so he has a very deep understanding of AI tools, their applications and their challenges. He also has quite a bit of internal ambivalence about working in this area and took several ethics classes in his program to work through some of these issues, as well as a lot of fears about being a young graduate trying to navigate the job market. Our conversations keep both of our minds open about benefits and concerns. He can fill in a lot of the gaps with educated, informed nuance that I would have otherwise filled in with reactionary denial, and he can hear me out on the ethical, philosophical and humanist concerns that I genuinely hold. I am determined to remain open as I age, and AI challenges me in that area, so I am so grateful to have a relationship that pushes me to think beyond my own reactions. I appreciated this episode because it had the same effect - to think past my own internal yuck response and consider the ways that people I respect might thoughtfully employ these tools in their own work.
Because it's the end of the school year and I've been SLOWLY grading Dual Credit argument papers, I was finally able to listen last night and I have SO many different and conflicting thoughts related to AI.
First, as a high school English teacher I see both the complete disdain for it (my teenager writer daughter HATES AI and often says the same things as your kids do about AI slop) and the dependence on it for completing work because kids are pressured to get certain grades and there is a serious mix of apathy, laziness, and inability to think for themselves. I have found myself using paper more and more this year, and this is in a composition class where computer work to write long papers is absolutely essential. (I'm constantly reminding them to show their work in the version history.) But if I can get my students off of computers, I do it. And they actually enjoy the days where they are told to put it all away and think out loud. Like many of my education peers, I am SO TIRED of having to check for AI in papers and students who are letting a computer think for them, but I also fear that we have set kids up for failure because we've created tech dependent children who do not know how to use technology as a tool for learning instead of a replacement for learning.
Second, as a writer myself I hate the idea of people using AI to create things. Period.
Third, my IT director husband uses AI tools all the time to problem solve, and tells me about getting into fights with AI because it's wrong or isn't doing what he wants it to do. But also, he's using it as a tool, not as a replacement, and it has allowed him to meaningfully increase output.
Finally, as a teacher with 25 years of experience behind me, Claude has been a GODSEND this year. I have been able to use Claude to create quizzes, review activities, and problem solve so much faster than ever before. Activities that would have taken me HOURS to compile with Google searches and looking through books, now take me less than an hour to complete, and they are better than I could have done on my own. Also, I have created activities I would never never done because I quite literally did not have the hours to spend to create them myself. BUT I also know my field. I've been doing it for years. I know what my students need and I know what I'm looking for and it's helping me gather that information faster than before. And then I tailor it to my students' needs. If I had been using Claude this way as a teacher during my first 10 years teaching, I wouldn't be as good of a teacher as I am today. We need to become experts in our fields before we start depending on these AI tools to do this gathering work for us so that we know what we are looking for and can quickly identify quality output.
It's complicated. I love the planet and want to do better by her, I'm tired of an education system that is draining away the ability to read and write well, I believe we need to be promoting ideas and critical thinking to save our democracy. AND I know that there are AI tools that will make our lives better but we're having the wrong tools forced upon us for the wrong reasons.
I think I’ve felt more pushback against you guys coming from inside me in this episode than anything I’ve listened to recently. Hearing you talk about AI, your use of it, your vision of it, the costs of it, over and over in my head, I heard, “Yeah, I don’t want that.” “I don’t want to pay any price for that, let alone this price.” “Maybe other people want that; I don’t want that.” It’s a very uncomfortable feeling that I think is good to sit with.
And my wife and mother, they largely talk like you two do about “this incredible tool” but I think I’m close enough to them that I can’t just sit with that discomfort—I have to stalk around the room and flex my fingers and grumble about that discomfort (when they aren’t watching).
It feels weird to be younger than all these people excited about progress. Like the classic “Kids these days!” formula has somehow reversed. In almost every moral formulation as a young person, you feel pretty confident that, “Nah, Gramps is clearly wrong, we shouldn’t use the N-word to talk about black people.” “Nah, that old politician is wrong; love is love.” But now we youths are the ones standing on our porches shaking our canes while the elderly run screaming for joy through the fields and the in-betweens are cautiously optimistic in their adoption.
Feeling like maybe I’m foolish and wrong sure is uncomfortable. I don’t like being made to feel that way even as I realize how valuable it is to sit with.
And it sure as heck gives me keen insight as to how the popular right has felt for decades about being lectured at by the left.
Again, not that you guys lecture; you’re very good, very thoughtful, very reasonable. But if I feel this way after listening to you, I can only imagine how my uncles felt listening to Obama. Or rather, how they felt listening to carefully cropped clips of him surrounded on all sides by indignant hyper-conservative commentary.
This is a wide-ranging comment. TLDR: Thanks for making me feel uncomfortable.
Thanks for being willing to be uncomfortable! I promise I'm uncomfortable, too, and just trying to stay humble and open. Nothing easy here.
My 21 and 24 yr olds despise AI and refuse to use it. The younger one is in aerospace engineering classes and recently worked on a group project where 1 student used AI for their part. The rest of the group was really pissed and shared their feelings.
However, I also listened to a recent TED Radio episode where the doctor spoke about how AI could be used to scan the retina to look for markers of potential diseases in the heart and and elsewhere in the body. It has so many wonderful applications if used as a tool. But without guardrails and careful study, it could do so much harm.
Also, $1.776 B? Beth, I nearly lost my mind and started swearing loudly. I too went to see Suff's last weekend and left the theater wanting to drive to DC and scream at the gates! Instead, I went home and wrote more strongly worded letters to my congressman and senator.
You just gave me an idea - I think "$1.776B? SERIOUSLY!?" could be a nice and concise letter to send our reps!
Thank you. Thank you for describing every single experience I’ve had with AI as I’ve been tiptoeing into using it at my small nonprofit, where it is my job to write our responsible use policy. I have felt every single thing you both mentioned, and I am relieved someone else has felt it too. It was helpful to hear how you both are using and restricting your use of AI.
My son (finishing 8th grade) has had several really negative comments about some of his teacher's using AI for tests, assignments, etc. It really frustrates him. I need to dig deeper into the why with him and what it specifically frustrates him.
I work in IT and use AI when I'm researching an issue, I find it helps me quickly get through some of the troubleshooting guides that are out there and filter through thousands of update notes for our software to find the ones that are most relevant, but I also have spotted many times where it's just flat out wrong about something too.
I've also found it's useful in editing emails when I don't want to get fired :)
I don’t have a solution for a full Goldilocks summer, but for the first time ever since becoming a parent I took off this whole week from work just for myself. The rest of my family is still going about their daily routines of school and work. It’s basically a personal reset before summer officially hits in a few weeks, and so far it’s been glorious. Highly recommend (if your circumstances allow).
@Sarah we should learn from Ashley!
Although my week is not the same without PP I would fully support you all doing this!
So smart!
Does Hillary Clinton get some weaponization money?
But the emails!!!!!
The $1776 slush fund. All I can think of to do about this shit is focus on trying to clean up the media environment somehow, but that'll never happen. The cult following that Trump still has is shocking to me. I can't believe these people who love him so much and believe he's infallible are getting the same information as I am. How do we address the media silos, propaganda, and obvious bias of our "news".
Much like the swing of younger generations towards registering as Independents, they're increasingly getting their news from independent sources. I think the generations coming up who are aging into the system will really disrupt our politics. And they'll be passionate voters, candidates, and digital natives who will never make it on to fox news or msnbc. They will never see them coming because they didn't start as a "young republican/democrat". I don't know if it'll all be good, but it will be interesting!!
I think you're right that the key to a Goldilocks summer is not working 😬
Although I've done some consulting work and taken community college classes, I've primarily been a SAHM since my six year old was born. This summer, my eight, six, and two year old will be home with me most days, but I schedule the summer in week-long blocks:
Week 1: Off
Week 2: Family trip (with my family followed by friends)
Week 3: Off
Week 4: Camps for the older two
Week 5: Off
Week 6: Camps for the older two
Week 7: Off
Week 8: Family trip (with my husband's family)
Week 9: Off
Week 10: Back to school for all of us (I start nursing school in the fall!)
The alternating weeks of activity vs. more unstructured time really seems to work for us. On "off" weeks we go to a museum/pool/splash park in the morning, come home for lunch/nap/quiet time, then will often do something lower key out of the house in the late afternoon. So there is still structure but also plenty of time for my kids to get bored. And I loooove being home for the entire month of July. It would need to be adapted for older kids, but a lot of the principles probably apply.
I adore summer. I have at least this summer and next before I go back to work so I'm savoring every minute!
My most "successful" (i.e. fulfilling) summers have had a similar rhythm, Stephanie. A nice balance between activity and down time. Intentional, but not over scheduled. I find I need some sort of parameters in order to feel more present in each day. Like, a "scheduled down time week" before or after a trip, camp, etc. really helps with enjoying those particular days, instead of feeling like I'm "wasting" the day.
And being able to stay more present in each day makes the summer feel more relaxed and enjoyable, and less of either a downhill spring toward school start or an endless drag of counting down those days.
Ok I like this idea very much, Stephanie
Sarah, I am trying to figure out how you use AI to create links rather than copy and pasting the urls. I do this a lot in my work - for websites, emails to members, announcements, etc. when I am referring people to other resources. I do the CTRL-K thing so I don't have to highlight the text, but how are you getting the urls to link to text without copying the url?
I think this is an important video to add to the AI conversation…(hint: it's funny bc it feels true)
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYYHfUrhxNu/?igsh=MXFjYW14dXI3ajU3Mg==
That is SO Claude.
Right?! 😂 "No one needs this."
Love the AI as assistive talk. I use it that way as well- and now can use that to describe it. Basically, I use it every day for 2 reasons- taking pictures of a semi-dead plant and asking it what to do, and asking it to help with recipes when the recipes I have don’t fit the ingredients I have (it invented a great mini banana muffin one for me with just two bananas where most recipes call for 3) or I want to lower sugar or spicy levels.
I would love if AI could make the data-entry, boring,time-consuming tasks go from 90 mins to 4 mins. So far, nope. 😂 I’m sure it’s possible, but it’s not happening…yet. Like if completing an expense report could be reduced like that?!? Freaking fantastic.
So much this. I asked ChatGPT to compare two lists of email addresses and tell me which email addresses were on both lists. It failed miserably, leaving me to do that manually. Meanwhile I'm expected to utilize it to outsource all of my creative/strategic work (marketing) which is the work I should be using my brain for.
co-pilot can do this if you are using word or excel lists. Technically xcel and i would assume google sheets also have a compare function.
Gemini also failed to compare two lists for me, then started making up "differences." When I responded literally "these are lies," it told me my lists were identical.
That’s my feeling. My company is pressuring us to outsource the cognitive component of our job (and conveniently upload lots of samples of our work product!) but not implementing AI in ways that would actually help with the pinch points of the job (file labeling, consistent formatting, form filling, etc.)
Listening to Beth and Sarah, I realized that one of the major differences in experience is that they - as small business owners - implement AI to their benefit, to streamline tasks. As an employee of a corporation, I view AI as extractive of the knowledge and work I produces, as well as a likely excuse that will be used to further increase the productivity demands that are expected of employees. I feel like I have a psychic vampire attached to me, and I don’t like it.
1000% agree!! Thank you for articulating this for me.
CAme across this just now as I’m researching something I’m writing…. as a writer, I want everyone who uses AI this way to have to disclose it and hopefully, readers will pass these books by in favor of books written by human authors:
“Chris Duffey, an AI evangelist at Adobe recently used AI to “co-author” a book titled “Superhuman Innovation: Transforming Business with Artificial Intelligence.”
In academic articles, authors are encouraged/required to state how they used AI in their research and writing. I find the notes interesting and helpful.
That's the title Claude would have come up with it if I asked give me a title I'll never read.