In his recent essay, “The slippery slope of AI in books” Paul was almost shocked by his publisher’s question “Did you use AI in creating text, images and/or translation in your book?” Of course, he answered with a loud, indignant “NO” to this question.
Then Paul explains to us that he uses Word’s spelling checker and occasionally a grammar checker. But of course, his text as a whole, is his own. Created by him and only him.
That made me wonder, how does this work out for my text with e.g. the contributions to the math section? I am not a book writer as Paul definitely is, but I write nonetheless. And doing so, I try to maintain my personal style. On a very regular base, Paul and I, exchange email messages with a great variety of subjects. We do this for more than 25 years. The writing is in our own style and very recognizable as such.
But this is entirely different from creating a fictional story as storytellers do.
So how about using AI in my math items?
Let me explain how my course of action is at such by taking my latest article “The Secrets of RSA Encryption” as an example.
Given the fact that I myself have no knowledge of the subject, I have to dive in deep to come to understanding it. In other words: I have to perform extensive research on the topic at hand.
My first source is always Wikipedia, a commendable source that I reward with a yearly donation.
There I find as usual an explanation written by experts on these matters, that only can be understood by their peers.
So more digging from which slowly the general idea of the math and the procedures is forming and the first questions pop up in my head. I will not go further until this idea shapes itself into understanding and answers to my questions. A lot more studying and thinking is involved into this.
What I don’t do is consult ChatGPT in this phase, I am afraid that Arty takes over too much thus preventing me from building the understanding at my own pace.
After digestion and comprehension, it is time to move on to the next steps of the mathematical procedure.
Of course there is nothing wrong with this digging for knowledge in internet sources. Education and insight arrive by studying of knowledge already available.
In the meantime there is a story to be told, storylines that act as a voice-over that must make sense of the abstract formal descriptions and the calculations.
But there isn’t much fiction in the description of a mathematical process, so the narrator is bound to the jargon, spoken in such lectures.
That’s why I try to embed the bone-dry math in anecdotes and observations from everyday life, for which one article is better suited than another. Here I hope that my personal style comes alive.
At the very end of the research process, there are often one or two questions left. The ones for which I cannot find a clear answer or none at all.
Then and only then I turn to my AI friend. In “The Secrets of RSA Encryption” I asked him how our familiar hardware manages to manipulate the extremely large numbers, RSA works with.
And in “Graham’s Number” he explained what the underlying problem was that Graham’s number was supposed to answer.
I assume that there are people that use AI in the most extensive manner. By prompting ChatGPT: “Write me an article that explains RSA encryption in layman’s terms.”
I am not one of them, I like to do my own research, learn from it, and offer others an adequate explanation from which they can learn.
In the meantime I hope that my personal style remains intact.
Eef
January 2024
Editorial comment:
Though Eef and I never discussed this, we seem to have the same way of learning new things. We do not just ask Arty or another source and write that down. While Eef’s contributions to this site are non-fiction, most of my writing, including my books, is fiction. But we both do a lot of research before writing anything down. We also share our preference for Wikipedia, and both contribute annually to keep it online.
In his articles, Eef chooses subjects that most of us have heard about but not as many truly understand. He then proceeds to write an explanatory article about it for this site. His goal is to explain by taking small steps, and each step in the direction of understanding. Before writing his article, Eef fully understands the subject, and he writes it down in his own words, using his own style of writing.
My books are generally based on real events, and I do not want to have any facts wrong, so research is key. Again, as Eef, research is used for en better understanding by the writer. And when this understanding is complete, the writing begins. For me too, in my own words.
Paul
2024-01
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