Re; On AI in response to: A Positive Technologist Identity (1/4)

I published a short post titled A Positive Technologist Identity, wherein I offered my thoughts on a longer post by Wojtek Powiertowski titled The tool, the craft, and the joy. In the main, I appreciated his take on defining oneself as a “technologist” in a positive way, that is, in terms of what one is for rather than what one is against. That emphasis, I noted, was wholly consistent with my then-recent article on defining good tech positively. Toward the end of my post, I noted one point of disagreement with phrasing wherein Mr. Powiertowski, who appends a note to all of his blog posts explaining that he uses AI tools for proofreading and editing, wrote that “[t]he question isn’t whether to engage with” AI and LLMs, but how. I offered my own qualification that in many contexts, including independent websites, not engaging is and will remain possible.

Mr. Powiertowski wrote a thoughtful reply article titled On AI in response to: A Positive Technologist Identity. In the independent web spirit (and since we both support Webmentions), I offer my reply to the reply. The reply will come in four parts since this is a short-form writing website. But I begin with agreeing with Mr. Powiertowski’s assessment: “I believe we might be closer in agreement than it might appear.” Had I not found his original post interesting, I would not have shared it in the first place. As I wrote in my original post, Mr. Powiertowski demonstrated how AI tools can be used for proofreading and editing an article by a human being for other human beings.