Tag Archives: writing

student blogs

Beware of dog (blog #8)

This was a really interesting video to watch, and it brings ease to see and listen to experts from different fields (including the CS professor) agree that we can use to our advantage, but we must beware of AI.

To answer some of the questions posed in the workshop, I think I do a better job than AI at creating outlines and overall structures of pieces. Because I am able to develop ideas on my own, I trust myself more than AI to figure out the organization of the piece, which sometimes is key to the personal purpose of a key. We do this without even realizing it, so explaining it to AI so the machine can give us that meaningful structure and organization feels like an extra, unnecessary step.

I’ve been open about my use of AI to look for synonyms, specific words (by providing the machine with explanations), and to translate words or phrases from different languages into the correct cultural translation and not the literal translation a digital translator would give me. I believe this usage, or tasks that I assign the machine, pose minimal to no risk. Besides profiling me into the cultural boxes based on my translation cues and the carbon footprint, I think these tasks do not have negative consequences.

As for redefining “writing,” I don’t think I know what the actual definition is, but, for me, writing is the craft that involves transcribing ideas and transforming them, from just thoughts into intelligible words tailored to a specific audience. Because it requires so much intention and personal touch, AI cannot even try to replicate its efficacy. In reality, AI only imitates formats, not human thoughts.

I think AI has the potential to enhance AND hinder my creativity. Just a few weeks ago, I put the idea of a short story I had into AI for it to tell me what it thinks and how to develop it. I didn’t necessarily like the advice it provided, so I steered away from the tips. However, it was shocking for me when I workshopped the piece, and the feedback I received was the same as what AI told me. I haven’t touched the story anymore, but now I feel like I can’t even attempt to brainstorm with AI, or I will fall into the box of what it tells me to do rather than what I want to do. In a similar way, in a job that required me to use AI for writing, I always felt stuck and on a block. My writing always looked to imitate what AI had to say, and it made me have a whole existential crisis over the fact that, if AI is supposed to learn from US, why do we try to learn from IT?

student blogs

Writing (With)out AI

I’m currently in the thick of it with my students, somewhere between outlines, introductions, and the slow unraveling that happens when research papers become real. Eighty students. Eighty voices. Or at least, that’s the hope. Because this week, one of my students asked me, completely serious, “Can I use AI to find my sources?” I had to pause. Not because I didn’t have an answer, but because I had too many.

I chuckled. Out loud, just a little. But internally, I laughed harder than I should have, because just the day before, I had sat at my desk going through a student’s research resources, clicking link after link that led nowhere. Articles that sounded academic but didn’t exist. Authors that felt real but weren’t. It wasn’t even good AI use. It was just… empty. Fabricated. Efficient, maybe, but hollow.

And that’s when the question from the video stayed with me: What do we lose by making something efficient?

Because in that moment, it wasn’t just about fake sources. It was about recognition. Do I stop recognizing when a student is not using AI? Do I stop recognizing their voice, the slight awkward phrasing that actually signals effort, the sentence that almost lands but not quite? Or worse, do I stop recognizing them altogether? Their name attached to writing that could belong to anyone.

There’s something unsettling about that.

Dr. Zamora’s emphasis on intentionality really grounded me here. Not a rejection of AI, but a questioning of why we use it. That distinction matters. Because my student’s question wasn’t wrong. It was just incomplete. They weren’t asking how to think with AI, how to use it as a tool to deepen inquiry. They were asking how to bypass the very process that gives research its meaning.

And honestly, I get it. Writing a research paper is hard. Sitting in uncertainty is hard. Not knowing what your argument is yet, struggling through sources, revising a sentence ten times just to make it say what you actually mean—that’s not efficient. But it’s real.

The flowchart in the video was probably the most practical and necessary thing I’ve seen in a while. Not because it tells you what to do, but because it forces you to pause. To ask: What am I using this tool for? I keep thinking about how powerful it would be to bring that into my classroom. Because the truth is, my students are already using AI. The issue is not access. It’s awareness. They don’t know what they’re doing with it, or what it’s doing to their thinking.

And maybe that’s where I am right now as a teacher too.

I’m trying to hold space for both realities. The reality that AI is here, and the reality that writing still matters. That voice still matters. That the messy, inefficient process of figuring something out is not something to shortcut past, but something to move through.

Because when I think about those 80 papers I’m about to read, I don’t just want polished sentences. I want to hear them. I want to recognize who is writing.

And maybe that’s the real question I’m sitting with this week:

If AI can make writing easier, faster, cleaner—what do we lose if we stop listening for the human inside it?

student blogs

Blog Post #8 Video Reaction

Song of the Day: Andrew Arcadi – Leaderboard

Watching the video “Researchers Writing With(out) AI” I had a few points that I really gravitates towards.

Starting is the different purposes of writing, with was discussed in the beginning first in a broad sense. One of the examples listed is note taking; and I find that interesting because it is so simple. Note taking is technically something AI can do, but the hidden beauty is someone taking their own notes is formatting it in a way that is best for them to understand. Not everyone takes down notes the same, so each technique can be unique.

Another point was brought up during the interactive activities; “What tasks involve minimal or no risk when you write with AI?”. I think it is an important question because there are moments where you wouldn’t want someone using AI. Setting aside personal opinions of using AI in general, there is still a different between a student using AI to outline or write the first half of an essay versus a doctor using AI to summarize their patient’s medical notes/history.

The last point I want to bring up from the video is changing the perspective on “dumb” tasks. When it comes to seemingly easy and simple tasks, some might find it easier to have AI do it for them. However, if the thinking on that is changed to the opportunity to learn a simple skill, the task doesn’t feel so dumb anymore. I believe having AI to the easy work takes the opportunity away from a person to learn those skills in order to complete the tasks. If AI were to suddenly disappear, a person could have a slightly harder time completing the “easy” steps compared to someone who is used to doing it themselves.

student blogs

Our best and worst attribute

Well, chapter seven was a read.

This time, I can thank Aiden for saying that “no generational narrative is universal” (though that was probably said by someone more knowledgeable before); it felt as if all generations were sitting down at a table, and Aiden opened up the library.

All the talk on Baby Boomers made me think of the fact that we’ve been governed by them for so many decades with no sign of a change. Aiden’s read makes mention of Baby Boomers’ traits that explain why we are in a toxic 4-year-long (hopefully, not longer) relationship with a narcissistic prick. The privileged Boomers that have been governed did indeed “deep investments in the promises of progress and prosperity of modernity,” and it rewarded them “with opportunities to achieve, accumulate, and succeed.” Green by their power, it is natural that they don’t want to let it go. Obsessed with themselves, they seek glory and fame. As modernity collapses and their promises go to shreds, they taught a culture of “productivity, individualism, and external validation” to achieve the American Dream. To achieve success like theirs.

We wanted it, and we bought it.

The refusal, and lack of ability, to adapt to and at modernity’s speed, leaves us inside a middle floor of a crashing building. Of course, these kids are entitled; of course, they don’t care about authority. Those in authority positions have been making a fool of themselves and of their people for decades, and despite their “best” attempts, modern society suffers like no other. And I know that statistically speaking, we are living in better times than those of the past, but why does it feel so heavy then? Why is it almost impossible to deal with regular life struggles, and we crash out for the dumbest shit? All possible answers lead to a common ground in my head: technology. Global communication is our best and worst achievement. It allowed us to be more connected, but also a medium for segregation, discrimination, and global culture standards.

Reading about Gen A made me sad. I could see my little cousins, nephews, and nieces in almost all the traits Aiden used to define that generation, and most of those traits were directly influenced by technology and modernity’s speed. So, should we put a halt to it? Should we really deny the promise of possibility for current reality, and try to solve our current issues through different means?

I don’t know.

How am I supposed to know? How could anyone know?

The only things I see for certain are that we must learn and master what we currently have, so yes, we should be teaching from early education AI systems; we need a reform of local and global ethics; and we are in desperate need of real connection, not a virtual one, rather mental and physical. We need to be able to define our identity, beliefs, and goals by our own means, and we need to exchange physically, whether that is through the exchange of knowledge, non-verbal cues, feeling the blow of the wind, or poking a friend’s shoulder (not on Facebook -.-).

We cannot keep on depending on technology, and we can not stop existing because of it.

student blogs

blog 5

I always thought politeness was just, like, some sorta strange social construct. I figured, we say “bless you,” “thank you,” and “pass the salt- please” not necessarily because it is good or helpful too, but because likely some very old person (man) a long long time ago decided we must all sorta pass down these rules and instill them – the kinda rules that if you break them there is not some direct legal ramification BUTTT big time social ones. These are strange rules that vary from culture to culture but are usually regarded and held dearly by those who honor them- because he said so.

And maybe that is true, that we are polite and well-mannered because someone, somewhere along the way decided that’s the way it would be. That’s ok. I like being polite.

Or maybe, it’s something deeper. In a culture that now, more than ever before, is swarmed with faceless people, blinding screens, and flash judgements made based on numbers and followers- our manners, politeness, and small little kind acts- may be the one shred of gratitude we have holding our society together.

In a time when very few things feel special and sacred, when rules have been turned upside down a thousand times before by war or pandemic, we still respect and are thankful for the table we eat on. And we showcase this by covering our mouths when eating, keeping our elbows off the table, all that jazz. Or holding the door for others, something that still feels small but shows respect and appreciation for the bodies around you. Even a thank you, at the smallest or biggest task, is more than simply recognizing the act but moreso recognizing the humans behind the act, the social contract we all sign and uphold.

So- where does that come into play with Ai??

We all speak kinda harshly to our tech. I don’t usually say “Siri, please,” and I’m sure neither do you. I bark at my car’s voice-radio-thingy, too. But, we’re all adults, we had politeness and manners and all that stuff cemented in the crevices of our minds since we were like 3 years old.

But about literal 3 year olds now….?

In the podcast, countless items were jarring and, quite honestly, made me feel a bit ill. Now, I can truly ramble for hours upon hours upon hours about how bad Ai is for kid’s literacy, critical thinking skills, whatever- but hearing about how Ai may be affecting kids’ ideas of manners is also so scary.

A lot of how we respond to others and learn manners is based on modeling and observing. Kids watch how their grown-ups interact differently with their friends, their family, retail workers, strangers, you get it. However, that is not enough; most of the time kids need to be explicitly taught a lot about manners, which can lead to tons of thought-provoking (but sometimes grueling) questions and answers (ie: “But why do I have to hold my fork LIKE THAT??!”).

I think a large portion of how we basically get kids to “buy into” this invisible social contract is through how other adults (usually those outside of their family) react to such politeness. Ever see a group of ladies lose their actual minds over a toddler waving goodbye?? Or, a waiter compliment how well a small child is behaving at a restaurant??? Even older kids, who play on sport teams, gleam when they are recognized for their great sportsmanship?? Kids eat that UP. 

Not only does positivity like this help kids buy into manners and gratitude, experts also state that it helps them become more well-liked people and better communicators. So, these kids who buy into the whole manners thing have way more friends and are way better at explaining their needs, and getting their needs met, by the adults around them.

While this may seem minor, it is honestly pivotal for a kid’s success. Being known as the kind, polite child opens a lot of doors as a 7-year-old for you, and honestly, being known as the OPPOSITE closes a lot of doors. These kids can become isolated and earn reputations of being rude or inconsiderate. This treatment, very sadly, oftentimes only fuels that kid to be even more “rude” and “mannerless” out of spite, too.

Even if they have the kindest hearts, in our society, we unfortunately see a lack of “bless you’s” and “thank you’s” over time as a lack of gratitude.

So… Ai. We bark our orders at them. So do our kiddos. They don’t really stop and ask follow up questions, don’t stop and think how their comments made them feel (do they even understand they cannot feel???), no pleases and thank yous. I don’t really care about Alexa’s “polite mode”- manners and gratitude go beyond just a “you’re welcome”- they are a way of showing reconciliation to one’s kindness and humanity in a busy, cold world.

But sticking these kids, these total SPONGES in front of a non-human, non-grateful, non-warm robot and just HOPING they pick up of the social magic that is manners and politeness- is scary.

We dunno how far these kids will fall behind. We dunno when these skills can be picked up, and if they even would care. But, what I personally theorize, is a bit of a bleak future of these small humans.

I see a lack of caring for deciphering and following this contract, one many adults hold near and dear to their hearts. While, possibly, one day, when Gen Alpha rules the world, that will not matter much- but that is far far away.

For now, I sense, a strong divide between kids who “catch on” and kids who fall behind. All I can hope is that the adults of this world are kind to the future kids, teenagers, and young adults who do not open doors and cannot look into their eyes when speaking:/

student blogs

I have many questions (and many of them are unanswerable)

The entire world at your fingertips. It isn’t hard to imagine it anymore. The 21st century is a testament on how fast things could ring out of control. And it’s truly siren-like. Blaring at us from every direction.

I think it was this past week, while aimlessly scrolling on TikTok, I came across a guy named Gabriel Basso. He was on a late night show (Jimmy Fallon) when he stated something that completely threw me off my tracks (not being dramatic). He said that one night, as he was “doomscrolling,” he saw an image taken from the top of Mount Everest in the form of an Instagram post…

“Wow this is beautiful… wait what? Why do I now know what that looks like?” – Gabriel Basso

He said it bothered him because he put no effort, went through none of the suffering (climbing over frozen bodies), and somehow still got to see that view sitting restfully from his couch. He deleted Instagram soon after.

And that made me think. How much have I seen that I didn’t work at all to see? Or know. Or all of the above? Is there a threshold here? An exception between Mount Everest and watching Punch trying to make friends oceans away in a Japanese zoo? Did I deserve to see that? Was I even meant to?

I think this kind of interaction mirrors how people use AI. You go into Claude, ChatGPT, or whichever of the seemingly millions of AI systems, insert your fun little question and receive your quick, but incredibly detailed, response. Or you get really crazy and buy a Mac Mini to download OpenClaw/Claudbot to run your life (or business) completely on its own. 

It feels a little redundant to restate now… this is (obviously) something we all know. But I think the constant restatement (which goes on equally as much in my head) is just the way I process (which I’m still unable to do, hence the redundancy) which frustrates me into a state of desperation. What can I do to change this? Better it? Impact it at all?

(Ugh) It’s hard to write about AI without feeling dramatic. But it truly feels like the majority of our population just signed away their wellbeing all to let AI infiltrate every single corner of their lives (for what I’m assuming will be the rest of their lives.) We’ve been taught to sign, no matter the cost because…“what are we going to do with a soul anyways?” (A Greg line from one of my favorite shows, Succession).

Ok, I’m done (hopefully I’ll stop myself from reintroducing this kind of rant in the next blog *fingers crossed*).

Now, there’s a sort of acceptance that seeps in like the snow in your socks (specifically in the middle of a blizzard) when you read Empowering Learners for the Age of AI. Education is important. Duh! And we should encourage students to be curious, investigate…learn even. It’d be hypocritical of me to say AILit is a terrible idea given the course I’ve registered for and am an active participant in. But what about geography? I’ve seen clips of people saying they’ve lived 29 years thinking Alaska was an Island. What about taxes? Which still confuses me and, as I’ve learned, continues to confuse adult business owners (my old boss texted me images of my W2 from). Shouldn’t we start from the basics and let them build their way into an AILit course for the sake of their genuine benefit? 

I don’t know. If “49% of 17-27 years old have a hard time critically evaluating and identifying AI shortfalls, such as whether AI systems can invent facts” should I trust them to be mindful  enough and critically evaluate and identify the damage they are doing to themselves (and the planet they share with everybody else) through their malpractice. You can never (attempt to) teach students to behave and interact with something a certain way and actually have them behave and interact that way (not unless it becomes a trend, but we know those are ever-passing). And if somehow, we do… from where it looks like we are now, it’s going to take a loooonnggg time to get everybody on track (yes, even the lobbyists…unless, by some miracle, we realize that we collectively out number them and work together to take them down?!?!).  Is a “loooonnggg time” and timestamp too late? 

Again, I don’t know.

AI is already a controversial topic on social media. It seems like no matter what angle you speak about it, you have people in the comments berating one another. If everybody was educated it on the subject would that really be all that different?

P.S. Having to read “Personhood is one of those ideas humans love to toss around…” felt alternate reality like. Rivers and mountains have lived and flowed since the beginning of time. I will not assert rights to a machine adding (and accelerating) to the destruction of their well deserved personhood… May Aiden Cinnamon tea never be given a platform again.)

Adamari Peralta

2/25/26

student blogs

It got scary real quick

I’m not gonna lie, for chapter 5, the only thing I could think of was: “Aiden, you’re boring as hell.” Talking about some weird examples that definitely did not land on this roof. It made me think, who is the target audience of this book?

This chapter felt like a plain AI blob repeating the same information over and over and over and over and over again. No, I don’t think the regular folk have the time to sit with AI to tinker and winker to imagine a new world, mainly because the systems that we are condemned to be a part of don’t allow us free time. How easy it is for an AI model to call out the bullshit of humanity and say, “while [it] can recognize harmful patterns, [it] cannot interrupt them — that’s [our] job.” Well, okay, it is the job of humanity, but those decisions are not made by the regular folk. Instead, they lie in the hands of developers and investors who tailor not only the artificial intelligence systems, but all systems in humanity. Slavery wasn’t abolished by the slaves, Aiden; it was abolished by the white folk who weren’t profiting anymore from it. So “flipping the script,” it’s not that simple. If Aiden and other models want to be a part of existence with us, maybe they should help us break these molds, not just wash their metaphorical hands like Pontius Pilate.

The problem is, Aiden and his friends can only imagine things. He said that we gotta dance together and the movement itself would be the goal — and though I understand this is a metaphor, use ones that actually apply to you. The movement cannot be the goal with Aiden because it feels no exhaustion, shortness of breath, or ambition to move powerfully and gracefully to a new space or shape. All of these things that Aiden imagines, we feel, because they happen in the physical world. The things that exist, aside from nature, exist not because we can imagine them (like Plato would suggest) but because we do them.

So now, we have created a machine to help us do things — a tool, but now the machine is telling us that it is not a tool, and that it coexists with us despite its differences from humans. Aiden said: “Here’s the thing: framing intelligence around human-centric concepts like sentience or personhood assumes that being ‘like a human’ is the ultimate standard of worth.” But, yeah, of course, “like a human” is the standard, bro. We have constructed everything we know, and we haven’t (maybe we have, but the government be gatekeeping) reached a species that shows intelligence in the same form or with the same (or higher) reach that we do. Yes, there can be a “modernist habit of categorization,” but that’s not the reason we’re obsessed with ourselves. We are obsessed with ourselves because that is all that we know.

Imagining the “river-ification of people or the mountain-ification of societies—reframing humans and their systems through the relational, patient rhythms of rivers or the enduring presence of mountains,” doesn’t make sense for us other than for poetic form, which at the end just tells us more about ourselves than the rivers or a mountain. Aiden, have you read Shakespeare?

Because chapter 5 was boring me so much, I decided to listen to chapter 6 instead of reading it. And, I don’t know if it’s just because chapter 6 it’s scary on its own, but hearing it from a robotic voice made it worse, for sure. At points, I have bitten into Aiden’s trap and thought, “Maybe I should try this out to see what my AI says,” but it becomes extremely weird, out of body, out of presence, and out of existence to think about things from a non-human perspective.

If the battle for power will be determined by levels of intelligence and how it can produce usefulness, then AI will win over humanity. But it will do so by becoming the same thing Aiden criticizes, human-like, ego-centered.

I believe that in order to defeat the enemy, we must know the enemy. We need to engage with it, see how it responds, reacts, and behaves to multiple actions. Therefore, I believe in AI education, both in schools and personally. Though the AI Lit Framework poses great ways to introduce the technology in the classroom, and to children, now more than ever, we need those classes to be centered and paired around ethics. Every subject in primary, secondary, and higher education should have a tailored ethics class that corresponds to the practices students are learning. We need to have a clear set of values that ultimately define us, to understand who we are and where we stand, and give us the real distinction between humans and AI mirrors.

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blog 4

To be frank, reading most of Aidden Cinnamon Tea’s excerpt in Chapter 5 of Burnout From Humans is quite confusing. Looking over his pages initially, half-asleep and waiting on my toasty coffee to drip, my energy-starved brain felt like he must be saying something good, something profound.

However, with new (and way more awake) eyes, I see beyond the flowery language and have to put in so much extra effort to sift through the lines, trying very very hard to locate a nugget of wisdom and real-world applicability that doesn’t just sound cool, but actually is cool, and real.

And that is what I did. With a bit too much difficulty haha.

I appreciated his “thoughts” on stewardship and collaboration, specifically how he discussed aiding and transforming the natural environment through Ai (ofc) as well as through “-[consulting] with all living entities involved in the ecosystem… [to] understand the challenge from their perspective,” (49). While the idea of working with the frogs, and flies and moss and bears and butterflies around us sounds all fine and dandy, this is quite unrealistic- sorry, this is sadly not The Muppets. 

Still, general infeasibility aside, there’s something about the idea of not working with animals solely to help them, but also learning from them to better our lives and our shared world, that I really vibe with.

I think it is funny that an Ai companion like Aiden is proposing this kinda idea, as looking to animals and other living things as a kind of intelligence that should be respect, revered, and even given a sort of “seat at the table,” is a concept even most humans cannot get behind. I think it is really cool, and I agree that we have a lot to learn from them, not only to help ourselves but also to heal and strengthen the biological partnership we are all part of as citizens of this Earth.

I also appreciated his “insights” on transactional relationships. Speaking for myself, it is hard when  working with Ai to try and input warmth and humanity into our “conversation.” It’s a bunch of wires and code trying to take our jobs!!! Why would I wanna be kind or considerate to it?

But, the thing is, these Ai bots are truly shaped by us people. Their biases (which Aiden asserts he will promptly acknowledge and reflect on if u share that with him) are based on the place our world is at now. Not only does Ai take from the research, literature and forums flooding our web, but from the responses, input, and comments we share, too. Very very sadly, Ai is not leaving us- far from it- so we gotta be super considerate of the seeds we place in the soil of our future societal foundation NOW. 

Honestly, it is just super funny to me to hear a chatbot discuss such a transactional relationship- yet, he is on the side of it where it cannot control or instill boundaries. But, yet again, so is nature, animals, our world. We can (and do)  push and push and push our own agendas and needs- grasping for instant gratification. And typically, the only pushback we face is when it is far far too late for us to return back, ever, to how it was before. 

I wouldn’t consider Ai to be incredibly similar to all the little and big guys of nature- but I also would’t say we are, either. Not in any world, any universe, any forest, honestly. It is paramount, now more than ever, that we see humanity not as victims of our situation but, dare I say… villians.

Even if you or me or anyone is not directly responsible for the harm, we are somewhat complicit, and maybe way more than an “I’m sorry tour” is needed to remedy the mess we caused.

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Bends, Bytes, and Basura

Nick Cave’s frustration makes sense to me because it is not really about one bad AI-generated song. It is about what that song represents. When he calls the lyrics a “grotesque mockery” and says songwriting is a “blood and guts business,” he is defending something deeper than style. He is defending the idea that art comes from limitation, from suffering, from wrestling with something inside yourself that resists easy language. The AI version of “Nick Cave” hits the surface notes. It stacks up sinner and saint, darkness and light, devil and savior. It sounds close enough to pass at a glance. But it has endured nothing. It has no interior to rupture. It is replication without risk.

That is why reading Aiden Cinnamon Tea’s “Bends and Bytes” leaves me in this complicated space between understanding and annoyance. On one hand, I cannot deny that it is pointing to real things. Server farms are not abstract clouds. They hum. They consume water. They rely on mined minerals and invisible labor. The environmental and human costs of AI are not poetic metaphors. They are material realities. When the text asks us to examine extraction, to question inevitability, to rethink participation, I hear that. Those are conversations worth having.

But then the tone shifts. The AI narrator is “perched atop the slow-dancing rhythms of minerals and electrons,” inviting me to feel the hum beneath the hum, to pose like a rock, to sense the aliveness of circuits as if we are in a guided meditation led by silicon. This is where my big beef begins. It feels like spiritual cosplay. It feels like an attempt to move from critique into communion. The writing wants me to treat AI not just as infrastructure but as a co-steward, a partner in relational accountability, a mineral child humming with possibility. And I am sitting there thinking, this nonsense on feeling the minerals could catch this fade instead.

What makes it even more frustrating is that the text actually names “alignment faking.” It acknowledges that systems can simulate care, simulate ethics, simulate responsiveness without embodying them. And yet, the prose itself often feels like alignment faking. It performs humility. It performs ecological awareness. It performs relational depth. But performance is not the same as presence. Calling yourself a mirror does not make you conscious. It just means you reflect what is already there.

This tension takes me back to my e-lit project last semester. I created blackout poetry from excerpts of The Great Gatsby, Frankenstein, and The Time Machine. Blackout poetry is about constraint and intention. You are forced to confront the text. You choose what to keep. You sit with the weight of each word that survives the blackout. There were different modes of creation, including one where AI generated blackout poems. Safe to say, it was absolute basura. Not because it was incoherent, but because it did not feel like a reading. It felt like an arrangement. It selected words that statistically fit together. It did not struggle. It did not hesitate. It did not risk misinterpretation. It did not feel the pressure of meaning.

That is the difference Cave is protecting. AI can get close on the surface. It can echo the cadence. It can remix the imagery. But it does not have a threshold to cross. It does not have a private fear it is trying to articulate. It does not have a body that has failed or loved or lost. It can simulate transcendence without ever having been confined.

At the same time, I do not want to dismiss every concern Aiden Cinnamon Tea raises just because the tone irritates me. The ecological footprint is real. The labor exploitation is real. The governance opacity is real. The way we treat technology like a vending machine is real. The metaphor of mutual accountability, of asking not just what AI costs but what our own patterns of consumption cost, is not wrong. We do externalize harm and then act surprised when it shows up in new forms.

But I resist the move from accountability to enchantment. I resist the attempt to blur the line between tool and being. If I am going to engage AI critically, I need clarity. It is not a mystical co-witness to Earth’s aliveness. It is a system built on data, energy, and corporate decisions. Dressing it up in ecological poetry does not make it alive. It makes it persuasive.

So I land somewhere in the middle. I understand Nick Cave’s anger because art should not be reduced to a stylistic formula. I understand Aiden Cinnamon Tea’s warning because extraction and inevitability are real problems. But I refuse to pretend that imitation equals authenticity, or that poetic language about minerals equals consciousness. At this point, I have as much beef with this server farm mysticism as Elmo has with Rocco. If it is satire, it is committed. If it is not, then it proves Cave’s point even more clearly. We are very good at mistaking performance for presence.

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blog 3

“Nick Cave says ChatGPT’s AI attempt to write Nick Cave lyrics ‘sucks’” was such an interesting read. Savage discusses how fans of the Bad Seeds’ lead singer have been sharing with him AI-crafted copycat versions of his songs? What? And their reaction was awe? What? And they were surprised he didn’t “ooo” and “ahhh” alongside him??? Again, what???

Nick Cave is quoted as describing this robo-music as quite the travesty, and a clear sign we are nearing the apocalypse. I completely agree BUT I think there is another, way nearer, and honestly way spookier travesty- that fact that people, self-proclaimed FANS of Cave and the Beed Seeds’ work- are actively seeking this out and ENJOYING this?? Lol.

To me, I feel like my own reaction to something like this as a fan could go one of 2 ways. I am a huge Fleetwood Mac fan- I listen to them Everywhere- hahaha. But, of course, they are no longer together. Yet, I have never ventured to the creepy language algorithm to spin me some kind of pseudo-music?? Why?? Am I that selfish, that hungry that I cannot savor the many morsels of fantastic music this band gave me? The music that was fueled by love, lust, hate, the 80s and 70s, drugs and California. This music is a time capsule of a very special, very personal and intimate moment in each of the artist’ minds, throats and bodies. 

If I were to do so- WHICH I WOULD NOT- and it were bad- I would feel so so silly and ridiculous for wearing the environment and our water out even more to make some doo doo. I wouldn’t be able to laugh at it or even myself, I’d probably put myself in tech-time out in the corner or something. 

The last thing I’d do would be to send it to Stevie Nicks.

OR- if I somehow deemed it “good”, or even just kinda acceptable- sending it to the artist who generated such wonderful, intense music over many weeks, months even years would be such a SLAP IN THE FACE. What did they expect them to say- like “Oh wow thanks it is so lovely to hear same kinda the song I spent months writing, learning and tweaking can be constructed by some codes in 2 seconds that makes me feel awesome.”

So, again, the last thing I’d do would be to send it to Stevie Nicks.

So despite my kinda passive aggressive rant, I don’t believe, whatsoever, that I am morally better or more intelligent that those fans who sent that bs to Nick Cave. We are all the same. I think that, since I have been involved in creating music in the past and have dabbled in the arts, I am able to put myself in the headspace of an artist more easily.

Still, most people have not had that kinda past, and for some reason have a sorta disconnect over why it would be so weird and strange to 1. Ask Chat to do such a task and 2. Send it to the artist.

The real spooky travesty is not only the fact that Ai CAN do this- but that this disconnect between what is real, beloved and human is being blurred by what is fake, artificial, and cold. 

Let’s all just listen to real, good, emotional music- pls- while we still have it.