Conquering the Blank Page with AI as a Creative Partner
Many writers face the silent struggle of starting a piece—the dreaded blank page syndrome. You know what you want to say, but the ideas scatter the moment you try to pin them down. Writing feels impossible before it even begins.
At 70, finding a creative partner in an AI chat window was unexpected. But AI sparked the writing process and helped overcome the blank page fear. The key was treating AI not as a writer, but as a thinking companion.
The process began by sharing a premise with the AI: artificial intelligence could support human creativity rather than replace it. Instead of asking the AI to write the piece, it was used to wrestle with ideas, clarify thoughts, and explore different angles.
This interaction brought unexpected benefits. The AI offered prompts and phrasing that hadn’t been considered, helped clarify structure, and nudged toward more concise expression. Importantly, disagreement with AI suggestions forced clearer articulation of personal viewpoints.
In essence, the AI served as a reflective surface—a way to hear one’s own thoughts more clearly. The hard work of thinking didn’t disappear; it shifted into a new form. Instead of facing silence, there was a dialogue with a tool more like an editor or teacher than a co-author.
The final result felt truer to the writer’s voice. Every pushback, clarification, and revision was intentional. When used ethically and intentionally, AI can help writers express ideas with more clarity and confidence. The page fills up, and the voice remains unmistakably yours.
Artificial Intelligence and National Security: A Complex Intersection
Recent news highlights how artificial intelligence tools are being proposed to analyze communications within security agencies. The goal is to detect "weaponization" of agency activities, though what that means in practice is open to interpretation.
Consider an imagined email exchange between an FBI agent and a supervisor discussing potential violations of presidential promises regarding deportations. Would this be seen as a patriotic effort to ensure the truth reaches leadership, or as disloyalty undermining a political agenda? The answer depends on who interprets it.
Such AI-powered investigations raise questions about bias and perspective. The human element behind AI decisions is crucial—who decides what counts as loyalty or threat? This complexity shows how AI tools in sensitive areas demand careful oversight.
The Shifting Landscape of Entry-Level Jobs and AI’s Role
AI is expected to replace many entry-level jobs because their required skills are easiest to replicate. Some argue that educators, CEOs, and policymakers should plan for what replaces these jobs. But if AI cuts costs by doing the work, companies may have little incentive to create new roles.
This dynamic creates a zero-sum game: entry-level human jobs versus AI automation. Companies benefit financially; potential employees may lose out.
More than automating labor, AI is reshaping who gets to think. A cognitive divide is emerging between those designing and managing AI systems and those whose intellectual tasks are reduced or bypassed. Entry-level roles once served as apprenticeships in reasoning and analysis, but AI threatens to hollow out these learning opportunities.
In education, AI tutors and auto-grading promise personalized learning but may deprive students of practicing messy, nonlinear thinking—testing assumptions, building arguments, failing, and revising.
The erosion of critical reasoning and original synthesis skills is a social concern. As AI shapes information flow and content amplification, the ability to question and propose alternatives becomes rare and stratified.
Will thinking remain a shared, accessible skill or become a luxury hoarded by a few? The answer depends on choices society makes today.
Work Expands to Fill Available Intelligence
History shows that labor-saving technologies often increase expectations and work rather than reduce workload. Early vacuum cleaners led to higher cleanliness standards rather than less housework. Office computers introduced new productivity challenges.
AI is likely to follow a similar path. A useful addendum to Parkinson’s law might be: "Work expands to fill the intelligence available, human or artificial."
This suggests AI may increase demands on both entry-level and professional employees instead of simply replacing them.
The Ethics and Economics of AI Data Scraping
AI systems gather massive amounts of data from websites to train their models. For example, Wikipedia’s vast, freely contributed content is scraped extensively, despite the community’s efforts and donations to build a quality source.
Legitimate news organizations and companies lose potential engagement and revenue because AI systems present scraped information for free. Many AI companies rely on free access to data for training, then plan to profit by selling derived products.
There’s a strong argument that AI companies should pay fairly for the data they use. If their business models depend on free data input, they should face consequences rather than gaining an unfair advantage.
Legislative efforts have tried to limit restrictions on AI data access, but public pushback has stalled such moves. It’s important to remain vigilant as AI companies may continue to seek deregulation to access data freely.
AI-Generated Disinformation and the Threat to Truth
Reports reveal that AI-generated disinformation floods the internet, often propagated by foreign networks. This content infiltrates the outputs of popular chatbots, blurring lines between real and fake.
We are approaching a digital environment where distinguishing truth becomes nearly impossible—even fact-checking faces challenges.
One practical solution is to rely on reputable news sources with proven journalistic integrity. Credibility and truthfulness remain essential for making informed decisions, especially in democratic processes.
As Edward R. Murrow stated, “To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible; to be credible, we must be truthful.” The survival of democracy depends on access to accurate information and discerning trust.
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