The Tech Stack

Why Not AI?

The easiest way to answer this is because nobody needs AI. What AI is good at is something that has been emphasized by many before. If a robot can do it, basically any corporate job, AI can do it. If AI can do it, you no longer require people to do it. Since people have souls (most of ’em anyway) you are going to require interaction with other creatures that have souls. AI does not and will not have that.

AI Could Become A Demon

Having said that, AI could be inhabited by a demon. Demons, though, do not exactly have souls either and are usually characterized by the distinct lack of these spiritual constructs. The whole point of reading someone else’s work is to try to understand something of the soul behind the creation. You can say copy editing lacks that substance, but you can judge copy written by a human being far better than you can than copy written by a machine. Know why? Cause you can feel something of the intent of a person, and not so much a demon machine.

Spell Check Is Not AI

Ye Olde Spell Checker, though, does not count as AI even though people try to suggest it is. Likewise, most rule-based style checkers do not count either, as somebody has to go in there and list out the rules. Styles and grammar rules change over time. While a machine is probably superb at spitting out MLA references in preference to people, how it gets to its conclusions and why is not necessarily an improvement as someone can “weight” a model to give more consideration to one paper than another. The old-fashioned version of this is “follow the research grants”. Of course, in that case, you can at least follow the money. Harder to do with a robot. They do not require money—or if they do it is not in the same way people do.