Updated Thoughts on AI

It has been an minute since my last post on AI - Using AI Like an Artist. In that time, I’ve gotten significantly more experience using the technology, learned more about how scientists are using different models as research tools, and I have spent a lot of time reading the increasingly the Anti-AI stance of BookTok and Threads. Which has left me with some questions.

What do I do with all of this?

I’m not even really sure where to start. I see a lot of misunderstanding online. There are also some very real and significant environmental concerns along with the emerging phenomenon of AI psychosis. Heck. Now even Pope Leo has gotten involved in the conversation. But the pros and cons of AI cannot be simplified into good and evil.

In upcoming blogs, I plan to get into the “plagiarism machine” and environmental concerns. For now, let’s look at disability.

AI as a disability aid

Over and over again, I see people online shouting adamantly that disability is no excuse for using AI. Especially in creative spaces. People claim disabled artists have found ways to make art forever, and that makes the argument of using it as a disability aid somehow . . . ablest?

Look. There is no denying that history has given us tons of incredibly talented artists who have created despite their various disabilities. Van Gogh, Beethoven, Chuck Close all come to mind. There are also undoubtedly tons of would-be artists we will never know whose disabilities made artistic careers inaccessible.

But I can really only speak in my own experience here. I have ADHD, depression, and several anxiety disorders. I have ALWAYS considered myself an artist. I have written since I could hold a pencil, started playing and writing music when I was 12, and dabbled in the visual arts, primarily photography until recent years.

My disabilities prevented me from finishing a BFA in music. Full stop.

My ADHD had me in a viscious cycle of hyperfocus where I ignored all of my homework except practicing. I ignored bodily signals like back pain until I couldn’t. I would forget to eat. My depression and anxiety just kept the cycle going. I couldn’t break down pieces of music into chunks I could actually learn. I couldn’t focus on writing papers. I couldn’t memorize my pieces for performances. And I do not know if a machine learning technology would have helped me with that.

I do know that my disabilities cost me a music degree. That has hurt me immensely.

I also struggle with some physical disability. I had a saddle pulmonary embolism and DVT in February of 2022. This lead to a lot of shortness of breath, difficulty walking, not being able to stand long enough to cook, not being able to shop for groceries, etc. I was afraid to ask for a handicapped parking permit even though I clearly qualified. I waited a year to buy a rollator because I technically could walk. Of course, walking meant I would need significant recovery - sometimes for days. And this is where I am getting to my point.

Just because I could technically walk without a mobility aid does not mean I did not need or benefit from one.

The rollator extended my walking distance. It gave me a chair anytime I needed to sit down in a store. And it reduced recovery time. It didn’t eliminate it. It didn’t heal me. But it opened my world up.

I did not wake up one day and think “I’m going to make comics about a goofy scientist named JenOS using a Large Language Model.” The technology didn’t remove the work. It removed enough friction to make the work possible. It made my jokes possible to execute in a medium I never really had access to before. It has expanded my creativity.

How else do I use it?

Meal planning and grocery lists. Time blocking at work - very helpful for a person with time blindness. Helping me organize my own notes at work so another person can read them. Let’s be real. My work meeting notes either 1) did not exist at all or 2) were hand written in a notebook that never made it to the project file. Again - I have ADHD.

If you have a disability and you don’t find AI helpful, that is perfectly fine. I am glad you don’t need it. But for me, it has been incredibly helpful in many different areas of my life. It is the only technology that keeps up with the speed of my own thoughts and helps me organize them in an actionable way. Or put another way, just because a rollator doesn’t help YOU does not mean it doesn’t help me.