Why I Started Blogging About AI
I’ve decided to start blogging about AI. “Oh no, not another one”, you might think, and sure, everywhere you turn there is another blog about AI, and yet somehow there are very few that I actually enjoy reading.
My content will be a mix of analysis and commentary on various aspects of AI in the world and its impact on real-life humans. It definitely will NOT be a recycling of the latest news and announcements. Others have got that covered.
The blog is called “Keeping Up With AIverything” because I do like a good pun. And all the good domain names are taken, so there is that too.
I’m not seeking a vast audience or advertising income, and I’m not even carrying adverts. I’m doing it for myself, and in the rest of this article, I would like to explain why.
Personal Learning
I’m in my 50s now, I have no idea how that happened, but I’m nowhere near ready to retire yet. I realised that I want to learn, need to learn. Sure, my job requires a lot of learning, but that is all around the needs of my job. There is so much more happening in the world, and now, more than ever, it would be really helpful to understand a bit more about what the hell is going on.
In the past, you might have read books, and hey, some people still do, it depends on what you are learning, but when you are learning about AI, books are out of date before they are published. YouTube and blogs have some useful content, but you really have to wade through the low-level recycled content being pushed out for clicks, while the really interesting stuff is often behind paywalls.
Then I discovered Deep Research mode in the AI engines, which delivers a personalised, detailed, and potentially lengthy deep dive, based on information from dozens of websites read at the speed that only a machine can.
Using Deep Research and learning how to optimize prompts to delve into a subject, view it from different angles, explore above, below, and around a subject, I was taken back to much younger days when I had a real passion for learning and writing.
More specifically, learning and writing MY way, about things that interested me. Classroom teaching never really worked for me. I wanted to ask so many questions, but back in the day, that was not an option. Now, with AI, you can ask as many questions as you like, silly or serious, and no one even needs to know.
I would still be doing this research even without the blog. I want to explore the world in a dynamic way, to see the world with fresh eyes, to explore opposing perspectives, to dig into the underlying issues and themes that might make some kind of sense of it all. Those themes are there, but unless you really dig, you won’t find them in the daily news cycle.
Personal Writing
In the medical world, there is the idea of “See one, Do one, Teach one” as a method of learning a medical procedure. While not everyone agrees with that practice, this represents three different ways of thinking about any given subject. In terms of AI, you might 1) read about it or watch videos, 2) use it and play around with it, and 3) explain it to someone else.
That third part, explaining it to someone else, really cements the information in your mind. Reading on its own gives you knowledge, using technology gives you skills, but to truly understand, you must be able to express your thoughts clearly, concisely, and logically. That, to me, is where the writing comes in.
Sure, AI can do a reasonable job of generating a 10,000-word deep dive on a subject, but it doesn’t help anyone if your own understanding hasn’t grown in some way. Writing gives you the opportunity to rearrange what you have learned, organise your thoughts, figure out what questions have been answered, and what new questions have been raised.
My view is that the purpose of learning is not to fill yourself with facts, it is to fill yourself full of questions. Two suggestions to try:
- When you are writing prompts, try asking the AI what questions you should be asking about a subject, rather than asking about the subject itself.
- When you are using a reasoning model, look at the “thinking” the AI sets out. This shows, step by step, how it is breaking the question down and the questions it is asking itself. That stream of thought can be just as informative as the final response, perhaps more so.
I’ve been using a questions-first approach in my professional life as a consultant for years and not really realised it, it just felt natural, but now I see it as an extremely powerful technique that is worth developing further. Everything starts with asking the right questions.
So, believe it or not, I would be writing these blog articles even if I wasn’t publishing them. I’d written twelve articles before I told anyone about it. The writing is an end in itself.
Personal History
In my dim and distant past, I was a web developer, but I gave up on all that for an alternative career path as a consultant. Setting up this blog allowed me to relive some of those days and learn how to use WordPress and build a website from scratch using modern tools. Ok, some might argue WordPress isn’t “modern”, but it’s right for me right now and is a really powerful platform. Learning that was a trip in itself, and I might write about that at some point too.
Understanding the basics of how to register and build a website, and all the legal compliance you have to deal with these days, goes hand in hand with AI in comprehending how the modern world is strung together. You can do so much without writing a single line of code, but you still have to know what you are doing, which fits in nicely with my refreshed approach to learning.
Personal Creativity
If you do explore my blog, you’ll see a lot of AI-generated imagery to illustrate the articles. Being faced with a wall of text can be a grim experience, and a well-placed visual metaphor can set the scene in ways that a hundred words or a set of bullet points never will.
Ultimately, I think what I have discovered in my middle age is a need for creativity. I’m never going to be an oil painter or lead guitarist, but I can turn an idea into a prompt and argue bitterly with the AI until it gives in and generates what I wanted it to draw in the first place.
This combination of devising a concept, expressing it in clear yet flowery language, followed by a hefty dose of sheer middle-aged bloody-mindedness, breaks up the writing nicely and flexes muscles I didn’t know I had.
Creativity goes beyond pretty pictures though. The act of asking questions is a creative exercise – shifting your perspective, making new connections, going on diversions down rabbit holes, identifying not only what information is there but also what isn’t, and then asking why.
Curiosity is at the heart of science, philosophy, and art. AI is a great facilitator, allowing us to explore our personal creativity in so many ways.
An Open Invitation
Maybe you’ll find something in my blog that interests you. Maybe you won’t. Either way, it’s here if you want it and here if you don’t.
I am aiming to add an article each week and will likely repost articles from time to time on LinkedIn for a bit more visibility.
Keep learning. Stay curious. Ask questions. One way or another, I hope you’ll join me in Keeping Up With AIverything.