To AI or not to AI?

Two examples that might make you ponder

Jun 11, 2025

FACT: I am falling in love with the possibilities AI is opening for me. I was drafting a logical defense of the future of writing with AI when I thought: Why not let AI do the heavy lifting?

The magic of AI is in the prompt and I’m in the midst of two courses learning the creativity of writing prompts. I can’t begin to tell you how much fun I’m having!

To demonstrate the power and versatility of AI, I wrote two different prompts which you can see at the end of each of the versions below. BTW, I don’t consider either one of these ready for publication, but both gave me ideas.

AI is turning a process I love (writing) into an experimentation lab

I think I might love even more.

VERSION 1: from an AI prompt … nothing has been changed

The Wisdom Oracle's Guide to Befriending the Digital Dragon

A Curious Conversation Between Aunt Minerva and Her Restless Niece

"Aunt Minerva," said little Cordelia, bursting through the door of the peculiar tower room where her great-aunt kept her collection of crystal balls, dusty tomes, and one rather modern laptop, "everyone at school says the thinking machines are terribly dangerous. Mother says they'll steal our jobs, Father says they'll steal our souls, and my teacher says they'll steal our homework answers. But I rather think they might be interesting. What do you suppose?"

The Wisdom Oracle (for that's what the village children called Aunt Minerva, though she much preferred it to her given name) looked up from her tea—a swirling, iridescent brew that seemed to contain entire galaxies. "Ah, my dear," she said, adjusting her spectacles that had the curious property of showing things as they truly were, "sit down and let me tell you about the Great Misunderstanding of our times."

Cordelia perched on a mushroom-shaped stool that had appeared quite suddenly beside her aunt's chair.

"You see, child, people fear what they don't understand, much like the villagers once feared my crystal balls, thinking them windows to wickedness rather than tools for clarity. The thinking machines—or 'AI' as the youngsters call them—suffer from the same predicament."

"But why, Aunt Minerva? What are they so frightened of?"

The Oracle stirred her tea thoughtfully, and steam rose in the shape of tiny dragons. "Well, first, they fear the machines will become too clever and decide humans are rather inconvenient—like weeds in a garden. They've read too many tales of metal monsters and forgotten that we're the ones who plant the seeds of wisdom in these digital minds."

"Oh! Like teaching a parrot to speak?"

"Precisely, though rather more sophisticated. The machines learn from what we show them, just as you learned manners from watching me, though I notice you still put your elbows on the table."

Cordelia giggled and promptly removed her elbows.

"Second," continued the Oracle, "they worry the machines will take their work away, leaving them idle as mushrooms after rain. But here's the curious thing—when the printing press arrived, scribes feared the same. Yet books multiplied like rabbits, and more people learned to read and write than ever before. The machines don't steal work; they transform it, like caterpillars becoming butterflies."

"What about stealing souls, Aunt Minerva?"

"Ah, that's the silliest fear of all! Souls aren't sugar lumps that can be plucked from tea. Your soul is your wonder, your kindness, your ability to choose between helping a friend or eating the last biscuit. Machines can calculate and create, but they cannot feel the satisfaction of a kind deed or the delight of a perfectly timed joke. They're tools, dear one, like my crystal balls—powerful, yes, but only as wise as the hands that guide them."

Cordelia leaned forward eagerly. "But how do we know they're trustworthy?"

"An excellent question! The secret, my dear, is understanding what they are and what they are not. They're like very enthusiastic, very fast research assistants who never tire of helping but sometimes get confused about facts—rather like your cousin Herbert, who insists the moon is made of cheese despite all evidence to the contrary."

The Oracle gestured to her laptop, which suddenly displayed a conversation with an AI assistant. "Watch—I can ask it to help me write a spell, compose a song, or solve a riddle. But I must check its work, just as I would check Herbert's arithmetic. The magic isn't in trusting blindly; it's in dancing together, human creativity leading, machine capability following."

"It's like having a conversation with a very knowledgeable but occasionally confused friend?"

"Exactly! And the most delightful part is that you can ask it to play games, tell stories, or explain why the sky is blue in seventeen different ways. It's endlessly patient with questions and never grows tired of curiosity."

Cordelia's eyes sparkled. "Could it help me write stories?"

"It could indeed, though the best stories will always come from your own heart, seasoned with its suggestions. Think of it as a writing companion who never runs out of ideas but needs your human touch to make them truly meaningful."

The Oracle leaned back in her chair, which had somehow become even more comfortable during their conversation. "The truth, my dear, is that these thinking machines are neither dragons to be slain nor gods to be worshipped. They're tools of wonder, waiting for curious minds like yours to discover what marvels you might create together."

"So we can trust them?"

"We can trust them to be what they are—powerful, helpful, and occasionally mistaken. We can trust ourselves to use them wisely. And we can trust that the future will be far more interesting with them as our companions than without them."

Cordelia grinned. "May I try talking to one?"

"Of course, dear child. But first, finish your tea. Adventure always goes better on a full stomach."

And so, in the tower room where wisdom lived comfortably alongside wonder, another curious soul prepared to befriend the digital age.

—From the Chronicles of Aunt Minerva, Wisdom Oracle and Keeper of Uncommon Sense

That story came straight from AI, formatting and all.

A note from the land-bound Captain of this Substack ship: While I would not use the story the way it’s written, I think it demonstrates the possibilities. I gave Claude.ai a prompt and out came this story, with nary a word altered.
My prompt: I would like a rough draft of an up to 800 word post for my Substack audience who seems to hate and distrust Gen AI. I would like it to be from a Wisdom Oracle talking to a young niece, outlining the main reasons people don't trust AI and why, actually, they can trust it ... and have fun using it. Ideally, it might have a tone like Alice in Wonderland.

VERSION 2: from a different AI prompt, again, nothing has been changed

The Great AI Writing Debate: A Coffee Shop Conversation

Two writers, one laptop, and a heated discussion about creativity in the age of artificial intelligence

Marcus stirred his coffee with the intensity of someone grinding an axe. "I can't believe you're using that thing, Sarah. It's like asking a calculator to write poetry."

Sarah looked up from her laptop, where she'd been polishing a draft with her AI writing partner. "You know, six months ago I would have agreed with you. But hear me out—"

"It's cheating," Marcus interrupted. "Pure and simple. Where's the struggle? The late nights wrestling with the perfect phrase? You're outsourcing your creativity to a machine."

"I'm not outsourcing it, I'm amplifying it." Sarah turned her screen toward him. "Look, I spent three hours yesterday developing this argument about urban planning. My AI helped me research precedents, suggested counterarguments I hadn't considered, and even flagged where my logic got fuzzy. But the core insight? The passion? The unique perspective? That's all me."

Marcus shook his head. "And meanwhile, it's reading everything you write, learning your style, probably training on your ideas to regurgitate them for someone else tomorrow."

"Actually, that's not how it works with the tools I use. But even if it were—" Sarah leaned forward. "Marcus, we've been 'training' on other writers our entire careers. Every book we've read, every author we've admired, every technique we've absorbed. The difference is now I have a tireless research assistant who never gets tired of my questions."

"But it's not human creativity—"

"Neither is my word processor. Or my grammar checker. Or Google when I need to verify a fact." Sarah's voice softened. "I've trained my AI to understand my voice, my quirks, even my terrible tendency to overuse semicolons. It doesn't write for me; it helps me write better."

Marcus frowned. "Doesn't it feel... hollow? Like you're not really doing the work?"

"The opposite, actually. I spend less time on the mechanical stuff—research, first drafts, formatting—and more time on what matters: developing ideas, crafting arguments, finding the perfect metaphor. Yesterday, instead of spending two hours googling urban planning case studies, I spent those two hours deepening my analysis of why cities fail their residents."

"I still think you're playing with fire."

Sarah smiled. "Maybe. But I'm also writing twice as much, with twice as much depth, and having twice as much fun doing it. Isn't that what creativity is supposed to feel like?"

Marcus stared into his coffee, considering. The conversation was far from over.

My prompt: Please develop a conversation about using Gen AI between two creative writers. One is leery of using AI because he thinks it’s “cheating” and will kill “real human creativity.” Plus, he’s sure that it will be “training” on his writing and stealing his ideas.
The other is a writer who says it has made her writing life more productive and enjoyable and thinks AI is like a tireless assistant, researching and drafting possibilities. She has trained AI to use her unique voice and can spend more time deepening her arguments and refining her writing. Let’s keep this one to about 400 words.

What's your take? Are AI writing tools creative collaboration or creative corruption?