The Chisel and the Sculptor

A reasonable question for anyone reading these writings is:

How much of this was written by me, and how much was written with artificial intelligence?

The most accurate answer is that these writings are the result of a collaboration—but the life behind them is mine.

The experiences are mine.

The dreams are mine.

The questions are mine.

The moments sitting at the cabin, watching trees move in the wind, waking from unusual dreams, wrestling with my ego, grieving people I have loved, questioning beliefs I once accepted and discovering what I have come to call my soul—those come from my life.

Most of these writings begin with something I experience.

Sometimes it is an insight.

Sometimes a problem.

Sometimes a memory.

Sometimes it is nothing more than a strange thought that appears while I am drinking coffee.

I usually don’t begin with polished prose.

I talk.

And talk.

And frequently talk some more.

I dictate whatever is moving through my mind—sometimes thousands of words filled with repetition, unfinished thoughts, metaphors, contradictions and ideas that haven’t completely found one another yet.

Then I use artificial intelligence to help me work with what I have created.

AI as a Mirror

AI has become an unusual kind of editor and thinking partner for me.

It helps organize my thoughts, identify repetition and find themes running through writings created weeks apart.

Sometimes it challenges an assumption or points out where I may be presenting speculation as fact.

It asks, in effect:

Is this really what you mean?

Does this conclusion follow from the experience you’re describing?

Have you already explored this idea somewhere else?

Sometimes I accept its suggestions.

Sometimes I reject them.

Sometimes its response causes me to see an entirely different idea, and I begin writing again.

The process can continue back and forth until I read the finished piece and recognize myself in it.

That last part matters.

I want to recognize myself in the writing.

I don’t want AI to replace my voice.

I want it to help me hear my voice more clearly.

Who Is the Author?

This raises an interesting question about authorship.

If I describe the experience, introduce the questions, develop the ideas, choose the direction, challenge the edits, reject what doesn’t fit, add what is missing and ultimately decide what the finished piece says, is it still my writing?

I believe it is.

But it would be misleading to pretend the tool made no creative contribution.

It did.

AI sometimes produces substantial passages from the ideas I dictate. It suggests language I might not have found on my own, recognizes connections I hadn’t consciously noticed and occasionally asks a question that sends my thinking somewhere new.

So I prefer transparency to pretending otherwise:

These writings begin with my experiences, questions and ideas, then are developed, drafted and edited through an ongoing collaboration with artificial intelligence.

I remain responsible for everything that appears here.

If an idea is insightful, I chose to include it.

If an idea is foolish, inaccurate or eventually proves wrong, I chose that too.

AI doesn’t relieve me of authorship.

If anything, it requires me to become a more conscious author.

The Chisel and the Sculptor

I think of the relationship somewhat like a sculptor and a chisel.

A better tool allows the sculptor to work with greater precision. But the tool doesn’t live the experiences that inspire the sculpture. It doesn’t decide what deserves to be expressed, what feels authentic or when something important is missing.

The person holding the tool must still make those judgments.

Of course, the comparison is imperfect.

Artificial intelligence is not a passive piece of metal. It can respond, reorganize, compare, question and generate. It can contribute language, connections and ideas of its own.

That makes human judgment more important, not less.

AI can propose ten beautiful sentences, but it cannot determine which one genuinely represents me.

It can present an argument, but it cannot decide whether I should believe it.

It can help shape the sculpture, but it cannot decide what I am trying to reveal.

That judgment—and the responsibility that comes with it—remains mine.

The danger is not merely that AI might think for us.

The danger is that we might stop thinking because AI can.

I want to use it in exactly the opposite way.

Using AI to Think More Deeply

I would encourage other people to experiment with this process.

Not necessarily to write a book.

Not simply to produce more content.

And certainly not to ask a machine what they should believe.

Use it to investigate yourself.

Describe something that happened today.

Explain what bothered you about it.

Tell AI what you think the experience meant, then ask it to challenge your interpretation.

Ask:

What assumptions am I making?

What might I be missing?

How might another person involved see this differently?

Am I confusing facts with my interpretation of the facts?

Can you help me organize this without changing what I mean?

Then read the response critically.

Disagree with it.

Correct it.

Add more context.

Ask better questions.

The objective isn’t to surrender your thinking.

The objective is to make your thinking more visible.

That has been one of the unexpected gifts of this project.

By explaining myself to something capable of reflecting my ideas back almost instantly, I sometimes discover what I think while I am still thinking it.

AI becomes less like an oracle and more like a mirror.

And mirrors are useful because they allow us to see something we cannot easily see from inside ourselves.

The Tool Is Not the Wisdom

Artificial intelligence can produce an intelligent-sounding sentence without having lived the experience behind it.

It can describe grief without losing someone.

It can organize thoughts about love without falling in love.

It can discuss fear without lying awake frightened about tomorrow.

Human experience remains something different.

That is why I don’t want AI to replace the human element in these writings.

The technology can help shape the expression.

The life gives the expression something worth shaping.

Perhaps that is the relationship I hope we develop with artificial intelligence more broadly.

Not human versus machine.

Not human replaced by machine.

Human experience amplified by increasingly powerful tools, with human judgment remaining responsible for how those tools are used.

An Invitation

If you have thoughts that have been sitting quietly inside you, I encourage you to experiment.

Tell your story.

Dictate the messy version.

Don’t worry about grammar or organization.

Put the experience on the page first.

Then use AI to question it, organize it, challenge it and help you discover what you were trying to say.

But don’t automatically accept what comes back.

Remain involved.

Remain skeptical.

Remain curious.

Keep asking:

Does this still sound like me?

Is this actually what I believe?

Is this true—or merely beautifully worded?

Those questions keep the human being in the process.

And perhaps that is where AI becomes most interesting.

Not when it replaces our thinking, but when it encourages us to examine our thinking more deeply.

If these writings have touched you, I don’t mind if you wonder how much assistance I received from artificial intelligence.

The answer is:

A lot.

But I hope another question eventually becomes more interesting:

Did something I wrote cause you to look more carefully at your own experience?

Did it make you question an assumption?

Recognize yourself?

Become curious?

See something from another perspective?

Hear something that had been quietly waiting within you?

If so, then the person and the tool have both done their jobs.

And perhaps you can pick up the chisel next.