Everyone Is Talking About AI
Sorry I am subjecting it to you even more.
Hello everyone,
I thought that I could avoid writing about AI forever, but that was just a pipe dream so now I’m going to dive in. First, the real-life run ins. I went to the dentist recently and they used AI to see whether I had any cavities. The AI software said that I might, but then dentist came in and said that I don’t. He told me the technology hasn’t quite gotten there (wherever there is) yet but that it will soon. Later I met with my therapist over video and he told me that he had begun using AI to transcribe notes and that it was all HIPPA secure but he had to monitor its note taking to make sure it didn’t make any mistakes. None of this had me very reassured.
Now the internet run ins. I couldn’t open up my computer this week without seeing something about AI — opinions, analyses, articles. The cartoonist Jason Chatfield wrote about it coming for artistic jobs in his newsletter while a journalist posted on LinkedIn about how writing will only evolve with AI, not vanish. And then there was the NY Mag story. The list goes on.
In an eerie twist, I was talking on the phone Tuesday with a friend and I wondered aloud to her whether radiologists are worried about AI taking their jobs. Then literally the next day the Times published a story about how the radiology department at Mayo Clinic has embraced AI, saving time and using it as a predictor. All of this whiplash — AI will sharpen our work! But it will also steal our jobs! — has, frankly, caused me anxiety and some hand-wringing (maybe you, too). I don’t want to be a dinosaur, but I also like the way I work and fear a slippery slope of becoming too reliant.
For many years I transcribed my audio recordings “by hand” (okay, I typed them up). This was very time consuming, especially for the audio I recorded during reporting trips which could run hours (I think my record was eight). But having to re-listen and transcribe the interviews jump-started my thinking, sparked ideas and helped me focus. I also recalled moments I’d forgotten or quotes I didn’t realize were important until I replayed everything. And then one year, while I was reporting for a podcast, an editor told me to stop typing up all my interviews and instead feed the audio into a transcription service. For this particular project, it was a game changer.
And so I tried using the service for my other work (but if I do a phone interview, I’m always taking notes on my computer in real time). And then I noticed this week as I went through my recent interviews that parts of the transcriptions weren’t always coherent. There were phrases that didn’t make sense and words that were clearly wrong. So I’ve had to re-listen anyways for accuracy and — like my therapist or my dentist — correct its errors. But also I didn’t have the experience of typing along with the audio and, as such, felt that I lost a key source of intimacy with the material.
I told this to my friend on our call Tuesday and mentioned that I also had a moment, as I was writing up my first draft for this same story, that I simply did not think AI could do my job. Perhaps this is naive, but I’ve spent this week picking quotes, moving around sections, changing my lede for a third time, and debating whether to describe a closed door as something that “wouldn’t open” or “remained shut.” Maybe a machine could some day possess this kind of nuance, but I’m hopeful we’ll always need humans.
Thanks for being here <3
Britta Lokting
Endnote:
A friend worked on this video investigation with the Gecko Project about a nickel company that knew it was polluting water. I love these stories - reminds me of another friend’s investigations into a Staten Island landfill and a coal ash pond in Alabama.
Why millennials are no longer cool 😂💀 (okay but how are we supposed to take selfies with the back camera?)
The future of psychiatric brain surgery - love a medical ethics story.