Writing with ai

Inspired by Ethan Mollick’s newsletter today (I Cyborg, Using Co-Intelligence), I attempted a co-intelligence writing test of my own. I’d jotted some thoughts about belonging in my Bullet Journal that I thought could become an article, but I felt some hesitancy to tackle it lest I get stuck on such a broad topic.

First, I dictated my scribbles into a digital note. Then I shared the results with an LLM and asked for a short summary, suggested resources on my main topics, and a revised version of my writing.

I haven’t incorporated any of the language that it spit out, but I was pleasantly surprised how the summary enhanced my clarity on the topic and helped me formulate an introductory paragraph. The revision also helped me see where I’d need to supply more explanation.

Later I was stuck on a suitable metaphor. I was using a metaphor that didn’t quite fit and was feeling stuck. I fed the LLM my metaphor and asked for three other metaphors which would make sense of the same material. The results were uncanny, and I chose the garden and was quickly unstuck. I couldn’t resist telling the LLM which I’d chosen and saying thank you, even though it’s not sentient.

It helped me get unstuck a second time when I was exploring individual-to-group reciprocity. I had a suitable analogy for individual-to-individual reciprocity, but I felt that a group analogy was also important. The examples that the LLM returned shifted my mind enough that I could write the analogy I wanted.

Curious about the result? See it here, a sense of belonging.