Let's Have a Think...

Every day since I deleted my Twitter account, I'm reminded it was a good decision. 

The recent news about Grok and its 'abilities' is truly grim. Having no Twitter/X means I easily avoid Grok so that's excellent. However, that's not the same for AI in general. I still have to scroll past the generalised AI summary after every Google search. I still have to delete the inadequate AI suggestion in any ALT text box, and I still have to continue to scan for the tell tale signs of robotic authorship - is it too general, bland, and pointless? It's a pain.

What IS easy, however, is to avoid ChatGPT. In fact, 'avoid' is too active a verb. That implies I make swerves and detours to ensure our paths never cross. The opposite is true. I've never used it so I've no idea how to find it. If I want to role-play chat with a soulless object, it's as easy to talk to my coffee table. Chat GPT can remain unbothered* by my queries. 

That doesn't stop me worrying, though. Worrying about how quickly society has shifted to outsourcing its critical thinking skills by using it. (Watching large swathes of an electorate/the media support a clear wrongun shows the importance of accessing accurate info and trusting the people that report it.) It's a skill to discern whether the information we're presented with is valid. 

If I've got a headache and I Google 'headaches,' I'm scanning the list of hits and looking for reputable sites. Getting info from the NHS website, for example, and not Geoff's Headache Tips and Tricks blog, is a good idea. When we ask generative AI for the same info, who knows where it's coming from? It's coming from everywhere! That means a bit of Geoff's blog as well as the more reputable sites. No ta.

My other issue with ChatGPT and its ilk, is that its responses are based on the vibes you're putting out. Like the algorithmic world in which we live, when you search for a particular product online (Heated Rivalry merch for me right now) you're inundated with every version of that product when you subsequently log on. Generative AI does the same. It bats back what you offer. It quietens the ideas of others. It means you're kept in your bubble, hearing no dissenting opinions or alternative options.

Me, sans ChatGPT

My brother says I'm old. He says this is the issue that'll leave me behind when the rest of the world has moved on. I'll live with that - I AM old. I don't fancy trying to prove otherwise by doing things that fill my gut with deep unease. My 'stance' against using generative AI is less a stance and more an unwillingness to feel icky, and stupid. I may be in the minority. A sibling convo at Christmas showed I was in the minority within my own family. Even my next door neighbour asked me if was going to use AI to write my future books. (That'd be a no! They wouldn't be my books! They wouldn't be written!) It's all very concerning. 

The good news is, there's an antidote. Yep! There really is. As the world burns, there's an easy peasy way of retaining our humanity. There's an easy peasy way of flexing the muscles we need to continue to discern truth and integrity, and relate to each other in all our messy, dissenting, beauty. It's simple. It's reading. 

Little old me, getting
lost in a story.

For some people, reading is an activity from school they've not bothered with since. This is a terrible indictment on our formal education system, by the way. To discourage a love of books is NOT the point of education. Stories are for everyone, at any time, and in any format. The ability to be lost in another world is so much more than a requirement for school. This is one of life's greatest joys. It's irrelevant whether you study literature to PhD level, or if you've not thought about a simile since Y11; stories are not solely an academic pursuit. 

Ian Dunt put it best. In his New Years Resolutions post, he reminded us of the importance of daily fiction reading...

'Fiction is unlike all other art forms, because it grants us intimate access to someone’s internal life. Only literature turns you into someone else. Only literature lets you recognise that other people think in ways we cannot normally imagine. To read a good book is to experience a temporary escape from the self. It grants access to the widest possible range of human feeling.'

The power of storytelling is not only that it stretches and develops the brain; it comforts it too. It's a safe space to explore tricky thoughts. We can make sense of the world or specific relationships in our own lives, by watching them played out in fiction. Our problems can be tackled because we've seen them tackled on the page. Our insecurities can be minimised because they've been represented and overcome in a story. Reading should be a prescribed antidote to the horrors on the news. It should be taught in schools! Oh, right... 

Maybe it's with this in mind that 2026 has been designated the National Year of Reading. Perhaps The National Literacy Trust has realised that keeping young minds on track can be aided by the power of human-written stories. Fair play! An excellent idea! But before we start going all 'certificates for most books read in ten minutes', we should remember that reading isn't a timed activity. Nor is it a competition. If it takes two days or the whole year to read a book, it's still an excellent use of your time. Booktokers and Bookstagrammers can seem hugely impressive by the volume of books they consume, but there are no rules. Having something on the go for whenever you've got a minute, is just as valid as reading an entire library. Speed reading is probably a useful skill but let's not forget to enjoy the process. That's the point, surely?

I'm always charmed by the Icelandic tradition of Jólabókaflóð. I've no idea of the realities of it. Is it an old timey custom that's eshewed by modern types, or if it's as truly magical as I imagine? Either way, the image of every household gifting books on Christmas Eve, to be read communally throughout the night, feels wonderful. Picture it... armchairs by the fire, blankets over knees, twinkling lights amidst the dark skies and the icy cold climate. Can you see the flickering candle on the window sill? Can you hear the quiet chuckles as someone reads an amusing line? Or what about the stifled sobs at a particularly moving paragraph? There's steaming cocoa on the hob that's filling the house with a seasonal aroma. Can't you just smell it? Can't you just picture it? Don't you just love it? Those visuals come from my imagination and that's because I've read widely since I was a kid. My imagination provides me with all sorts of lovely stuff. Christmas Eve in Iceland - why not? I'm so lucky. Except it's not luck. It's cultivation and development. It's reading. 

Haven't I banged on! To summarise this ramblier than usual Ramble, I was trying to find the exact reading quote I half remembered. Director John Waters once said something about ditching a date if they didn't read. I've done a quick Google and found the quote. It's...

'If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck them.'

He's direct! I like it. Sure, in this day and age people might have a Kindle, or listen to audiobooks on a device. Perhaps the lack of a book shelf isn't as clear cut as it once was. But there's more. In the search for that quote, I employed my critical thinking skills. I didn't just take the first site listed. I checked out a few. Apparently it's a quote with a wider context. It seems Waters said...

'We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck them. Don’t let them explore you until they’ve explored the secret universes of books. Don’t let them connect with you until they’ve walked between the lines on the pages. Books are cool, if you have to withhold yourself from someone for a bit in order for them to realize this then do so.'

There's even more than that. It's from this website, which states it's 'what John Waters really said'  But they add that someone called AV Flox said that they didn't know if he did write it but that they 'like this version better.' 

This is not good enough people! When I want to know if my half remembered quote is accurate. I don't want to be fed it as though it might not be but who cares. That's the problem with AI. I might as well ask ChatGPT. Can we all just get back to thinking? Let's make thinking cool again! If we can't be arsed to do that, at the very least, let's pick up a book. It's fun!

Have a lovely week, folks.

*Remaining unbothered is something humans have the ability to do. What we're talking about here is not human. It's a technology that scrapes old info and presents it as fresh. It's designed to mirror the cues the person accessing it, has given. Let's not anthropomorphise it and pretend it can choose to be unbothered.