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Joy Archer's avatar

This is an interesting exercise, Tim. Working with AI requires a time committment, just like learning any new skill. As Helen said, chatting back to the AI to get closer to what you want is where the real value is. You can ask it to be more friendly, for example, or to adopt your writing style from your Substack. It will comply.

In my work I write customer stories for a large tech company. I am expected to use AI as much as possible. I've found it's incredibly helpful to my process in some areas, and not at all in others. I figured this out through months of experimenting, which simultaneously made me better at working with AI. That's a neat trick.

Note that I use AI frequently for my job, but NEVER for my personal essay writing. I don't see the point with personal work, which is fundamentally about me understanding/discovering what I think. AI can't help there.

AI is most helpful for me:

+ As an assistant to quickly fact-check technical details on complicated topics

+ To offer options for how to articulate a concept clearly

+ To offer ideas for subheads, based on content I wrote

+ To find specific ideas, quotes, or topics in an interview transcript

+ To summarize interviews or meetings

AI is not helpful for me:

+ For writing a shitty first draft. I find I get stuck on editing the shitty draft, when what it really needs is a total re-write. But since the first draft is done, I can't seem to step away. I don't use it for a first draft any more.

+ For assimilating complex information with nuance, and providing an outline. It makes sense it would suck at this. A lot of the nuance of a story is in my head, not in notes or transcripts.

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Freelancing With Tim's avatar

This is super interesting! Thanks for writing. Just out of curiosity, is there a specific AI you find most useful? Or do you use multiple one?

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Joy Archer's avatar

I use Microsoft 365 Copilot/Copilot. This is built on OpenAI's ChatGPT, but since it lives in my workspace (Word, Outlook, Edge browser), it's significantly more useful than ChatGPT. It will use both my working documents (including company Sharepoint files) and the web in its responses.

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Freelancing With Tim's avatar

Ooooo I do like that. Tbh I should probably looking more into using AI for logistical/operational things ... hmmm ...

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Marisa Russello's avatar

I started taking improv classes a few months ago for fun and would love a way to practice on my own. I recently noticed that there are some specific AIs built to for just that. I've tried one so far. It wasn't great at following the actual rules of improv, but it was funny!

Really glad to see you back, Tim!!! ☺️ We missed your Substack!

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Freelancing With Tim's avatar

Aw thanks! Glad to be back! And also, just lol @ AI doing improv, that itself is hilarious lmao

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Stephanie Golden's avatar

You might want to check out this On the Media interview with Ed Zitron. He says LLMs are not real AI and they will never get better than they are now. Plus he's fantastically entertaining.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/inside-the-artificial-intelligence-hypeet better.-cycle-and-how-ai-is-making-music

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Freelancing With Tim's avatar

Hahahaha oh man I love Ed! Definitely gonna listen to this, he's just the best. Thanks for flagging it!

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Helen's avatar

"Are you using AI in your freelance work?"

Absolutely and very happily!

The web searches ChatGPT can now do are phenomenal. It's saving me days of investigation.

Also, do I want to reduce my (already written by me) word count quickly? You bet.

Brainstorming and having someone who can get you when trying to find the right angle doesn't hurt at all.

Oh, by the way, the answer you posted by Chat in your email wasn't that bad; it'd be better if you'd spent a few minutes chatting it up, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that. :*

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Freelancing With Tim's avatar

Love this! (And thanks for the tip, never used it for writing before!)

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