On AI and Memoir (and the messy mess of memories)

I’ve been having a lot of arguments with AI lately. Mostly because it’s dumb when it comes to expressing complex thought. I don’t know why I even use it sometimes… except that it saves me a ton of time when I’m brainstorming, researching, and outlining. AI excels at those things.

Writing my thoughts, however, is all about me. AI can’t feel. It can’t reflect on the meaning of things. And it certainly can’t express emotion, unless that emotion comes along with words like “illuminate” or “underscore.” Yeah, no thanks.

When we depend on someone or something else to tell us how we feel, we never get to the truth. That’s why I tell my clients that using AI when it comes to something like sharing your story is a recipe for disaster.

Memories are messy. Very messy. Trying to hit the motherlode when you’re digging through miles of rock it NOT easy. You have to push aside those random thoughts that come into your head that say, “Why are you doing this? It’s too hard. Let it go.” But you can’t let it go, or you wouldn’t even be thinking about writing your memoir.

But you are thinking about it. All the time. And you know how much work you’ll need to do to get to those gold nuggets. AI can’t do that work for you.

After working with AI for some time now, and intensely for the past year, I can say that it’s particularly helpful for:

• Research — except that it often gives incorrect references, so I double-check everything. Still saves a lot of time, though.

• Brainstorming — I can get hundreds of ideas for a blog post or social media caption with a simple prompt.

• Organizing — This is where AI shines: the menial tasks that I don’t want to spend time on. It can put dozens (hundreds) of disparate musings into well-laid-out categories at the press of a button.

So, there you go… AI’s not all bad. Just don’t use it to write your memoir.

It takes perseverance and guts to dig into your memories and wrench out the gold nuggets. But you can do it. And the pride you’ll feel when you do is something AI can never provide.

Happy mining! And if you need any help when you’re down in that memory cave, just let me know. I’m happy to throw out a lifeline.