Artificial intelligence is NOT used to write this blog.

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Valuing the Process

Sometimes a thing worth doing… is worth doing the slow, handmade way. This blog is one of those things. I do not use any chatbots or other AI tools to formulate ideas or craft my sentences. Such shortcuts would completely miss the point.

This blog demonstrates a track record of valuing slow creative endeavors.

I run on lots of coffee (usually the drip kind with a little half & half and sugar) and the wonder of discovery. Throughout my life, I have reveled in creative work that takes time and thoughtfulness. Although this website shares just a tiny taste of my lifetime of projects, several examples of my deliberative, attentive endeavors (and writing about them) currently exist as blog posts as on this very platform:

• Reviving a Treadle Sewing Machine (restoration & use of pedal-driven equipment)
• 18th Century Sewing Roll Kit (personally researched & hand sewn)
• 18th Century Jacket (entirely hand sewn)
• Forthcoming: What is Apple Butter (including my family’s pre-industrial methods)

Tools and Trade-Offs

Mechanical objects which expand human experience and save untold amounts of sweat and labor are to be praised, at least in general. They liberate our most precious resource, our time.

Throughout every era of human civilization, people have applied ingenuity toward building devices that increase efficiency. This cycle of problem solving results in a continually growing number of both highly specialized and broadly useful tools.

But, using a tool comes with a cost. If you sew with a machine, rather than by hand, you gain speed, but you lose the fine precision of a needle pushed with a thimble. If you snap a photo on your phone to document an event, you’ve saved the labor of developing film or holding a paint brush. Yet, that photo can become lost and meaningless in a sea of 10,000 digital photos. We are inundated with opportunities for instant gratification, but it is still up to us to choose what we want to see, what we trust, what our priorities are.

Keeping ChatBots in their Place

When used as a super-charged search engine, AI can be a great vehicle for research, but only if the human user isn’t allowing the machine to control the steering wheel. “Artistic” content generated wholly by AI is only mimicry of things people have previously made the hard way. It’s like injection molded plastic that is pretending to be wood. Things made of natural materials (wood, clay, wool, granite, etc) may have more variability and visible flaws, but they can also be more beautiful when properly shaped, showcased, and cared for. In a hospital setting, exquisitely engineered technical equipment saves lives, but only when operated and controlled by empathetic humans. On some level, even our infinitely complex bodies are merely equipment, and— without the morality and ethical framework of our minds,– are just as cold and unfeeling as an AI chatbot. The soulless technology must be kept subordinate to creatures that can feel pain and joy.

G.K. Chesterton observed in 1906 that, “None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia… have any power except over the people who choose to use them.” The discussion about technology and its proper use is as old as AI-Chatbots are new. We must continue to place supreme importance on human judgement, and exert caution with seductive tools that promise ease but wrest from us our inner compass and our control.

“None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia… have any power except over the people who choose to use them.”

G.K. Chesterton, 1906

I don’t want to be part of the race to the bottom.

These days, AI is pushed on us anytime we interact with the internet (including the interface I use to build blog posts) and is thus impossible to avoid entirely. It is not lost on me that I could have asked AI to write this very essay. I could have asked the machine to craft eloquent falsehoods telling you the precise opposite of the truth, but I would have known it was a lie.

To be honest, though, enlisting the help of AI can be useful sometimes. I have used chatbots as a short cut for administrative tasks that are tedious but necessary. I have asked large language models to draft emails and suggest gift ideas. These digital brains can be quite a time-saver when used for such things, but I only use them for things I already know how to do well (like draft an email) and provide no additional satisfaction. That use case for the tool of AI is akin using a computer rather than pen and paper to record my thoughts in writing. It eases the work load, but doesn’t chip away at the user’s own faculties. I have intentionally maintained the skill of writing by hand in cursive because sometimes handwriting, not a computer and printer, is the best tool for a job.

I explore historical topics because they are inherently interesting to me, and I find personal value in making discoveries. The skills accumulated through combination of thought and physical work add to my personal repertoire. There is joy in the act of creating something and seeing the progress build over time– climbing the mountain with the strength in your own legs, rather than teleporting to the peak with atrophied muscles. If AI spares us some pain, then great. But, we shouldn’t let it steal from us the pleasure that comes with putting in old-fashioned effort and building literal and figurative muscle in the process.

The Tortoise Beats the Hare (Conclusion)

In this new epoch when words are unbelievably cheap, real and genuine human thoughts mean more than ever. In the old fable, the tortoise who moves methodically and slowly, but avoids distractions and idleness is the one who wins the race. I will never produce enough content fast enough to compete with the synthetic manufacturers seeking commoditized attention.

I intend to be the tortoise, who finds value in the journey. I hope that you will come back to my little corner of the internet because, although the medium is digital, the experience is real. I know that I have a unique voice. My fingerprint is embedded in the way I formulate ideas and craft them into thoughts on a page. I hope that my personality comes through in my writing, and that I do not have to reiterate to you that I’m human. I have to trust my realness will be clear to the humans that read this. I wonder if the machines will also know I’m human, because surely they will be reading this too.

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Want to test your knowledge of old tools and technology?

Try your hand at identifying 10 bits of technology that have fallen out of use by taking the Obsolete & Antique Tools Quiz (Easy).

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