At the moment, I am gathering thoughts and ideas on various topics for potential future longer blog posts, including:
- Lies, damned lies and statistics, about how politicians in the UK are weaponising immigration numbers (when in fact, several of them could be looked at as success stories for policies such as attracting foreign students (and their money) and attracting staff to fill vacancies in the health and social care systems
- Argentina, individualism and collectivism. seeking to understand and pique the interest of readers in the history and present of Argentina’s economic death spiral, potentially linking it to how one can think of individualism and collectivism in ways that link to whole countries, such as how Jamaica have escaped their own economic death spiral and, improbably, the yoke of IMF control.
There are two complex themes with dots to connect. They interest me, but I do not know yet what I think about them and what ideas and opinions I wish to put forward. As you can likely now tell, part of my process is to take time to read widely, speak to experts, gather information, and then formulate thoughts. The next step, then, is to start to write. What I don’t do is use ChatGPT to ask it:
“Write a 1000-word blog post on the economic history and decline of Argentina and how it might emerge from this through a balance of inspired collectivism and individual drive”.
Why not? Well, if I use that to create a starting point for the post, I lose the gift of fully developing my thoughts on the topic through writing.
I’ve written around this topic several times, including (inspired by the words of Joan Didion) “Writing as a way to access one’s mind“, and also (inspired by Remi Guyot) “Write to discover your thoughts“. I am concerned that the use of large language models such as ChatGPT will reduce our ability to discover our thoughts, to understand what we think. It is also amazing and important to be aware that almost every high school and university student is already using it to do (at least) the first draft of their work, so this has gone from nowhere to ubiquitous in about a year. What is the approach to take, then? Well, if we see the benefit in writing, then we encourage those who do want to understand what they think to be careful in their use of ChatGPT.
As an example, I couldn’t resist actually putting that request about Argentina into ChatGPT. It wrote a really solid piece. About 70% of it covered the history and did it well enough for my needs, ie to bring salient and sufficient depth for my readers, who likely have mostly never paid any attention to the economic history of Argentina. I then made sure to NOT read the bit about recommendations for the future, as I do want to discover my own thoughts.
So, I then asked ChatGPT the same query, but only the first part:
“Write a 1000-word blog post on the economic history and decline of Argentina”.
It gave the history, and then (I love this), finished with:
“Argentina’s economic history is a testament to its resilience in the face of formidable challenges. From the glory days of being a global economic player to grappling with severe crises and persistent economic issues, the nation has experienced a multifaceted journey. Understanding the root causes of Argentina’s economic decline is crucial for envisioning a path forward. In subsequent articles, we will explore potential strategies and solutions that Argentina could adopt to reinvigorate its economy, fostering sustainable growth and prosperity. By learning from its past and embracing innovative approaches, Argentina can lay the groundwork for a brighter economic future.”
I love this as it stops, as per the query, at the point where the writer using ChatGPT to generate the background themes, can then write their own thoughts on what comes next.
What I love doing (and am known for) is connecting the dots between ideas, so perhaps I may use ChatGPT for some background in certain posts (and enquire of ChatGPT in that fashion), thus allowing myself more time to focus on what the dots are that I see and then start to write from that point forward in order to understand what I think.