Let's Talk About AI

artificial dog: let's hope we don't outsource pet care to AI but I would gladly give an artificial dog to some.

I have been probed in conversations about my use of AI generated visual content and possibly text editors. It is right to question this and I am happy to offer an explanation. After all I also privately talk about the encroachment of the digital into our lives, at the expense of nature, so here we go...

What do I use generative AI for?

Mainly, I use it to compensate for my deficiencies in design interfaces and patience to learn a system that's going to change again. I need the content because otherwise I will not get your attention and right now AI is within my ecosystem while designers are expensive. That is not to say I don't hire designers for important designs such as my logo and brand artwork, which I need to credit to Kate Watson from Funix by the way.

I am also prone to type too fast, have clumsy fingers, forget punctuation, write essay sentences, be blind to spelling and meander on and back into topic because my writings are shaped my by my neurospicy brain train. AI writing assistants have often helped translate the final product into something you don't have to decode. For example I am choosing to not use AI today. So sorry for the meandering!

Why not use real photos? I do. When I can find nice real photos or have released ones of my own that portray what I want to show you, I use them and it helps. But when I can't find them or I do not have permission to share, I don't go out hunting for a posed scenario. To make a point of it, I don't want to exploit or endanger pets for clickbait. I think this is one way AI can help animals to be honest.

What about the automated chat on your website? Fair question! It is a fairly new feature I am testing for client engagement and site navigation ease. I am monitoring it for rogue behaviour too as it should never state anything from the world wi(l)de web or give you any specific advice about pet behaviour beyond directing you to one of my approved resources or products. In fact that AI assistant is more like a better search engine geared at taking you straight to where you need. I am also working on visibility and navigation for the site to hopefully not need the chatbot at all. So feel free to have a look around and provide some feedback for improvements of any broken links or features. Do I know the harms of AI? Yes! I follow, closely, and I hope we find a way to make AI accessible while mitigating the environmental harm. Unfortunately because so much of it is so deeply integrated into the movement of data and interactions already, it hides in many optimization settings we all use every day. I am trying to survive in that world as a startup. I consider my use of AI to be quite sensible and aimed at improving something I care for. Past that I hope no people let their government turn it into a surveillance state machine and that the data centers haven't already put us in the matrix. So you aren't worried? Yes I am! I worry about what I can see. I am worried about the large language chat bots. for two reasons; they are handling and need the large servers to process large texts and they are the ones people chat with about everything under the Sun asking very badly written questions.

Just 5 years ago social media was the quickest way to engage a question, by crowd-sourcing the answer to evidently bad questions. At least a sensible proportion of people fell under the "seek professional advice" umbrella, more fell under the "give better info" responses but too many comments just fired one liner advice based on one line questions like it's primary school homework. Before that you had to use search engines and read, before that it was the library. Now you have something in your pocket that will respond (mostly) like you are their number one priority. The effects that has on the brain's reward cycle aren't lost to me.

While I wish it wasn't so, it is inevitable that many will ask pet behavior related questions to AI chatbots. To be honest I expect pet owners are asking AI questions to fact check their pets diagnosis or assessment.

The perception: AI knows everything and gives all the right answers.

Reality: AI knows what they train it on and it gives you the answer triggered by the searches in the prompt with high confidence.

Ask it about the origin of a fictional breed or animal and it will make up an answer or try to but then tell it you're going to sleep in your sulphur cloud and it will wish you a good nap.

This is why I am putting together a workshop for pet owner AI literacy:

• When what and how to get the best information out of AI,

• maintaining a healthy skepticism,

• follow ups that clarify things

• understanding the limitations of AI responses and

• when to close the chat and walk away If this sounds like something for you, get in touch! Once I know the size of the interest I can make suitable arrangements.