Friday Features: Dinosaurs

This is not written by AI. Any mistakes or misstatements of material fact are my own. I was recently asked to provide a statement of AI usage for a book chapter that I wrote on identity theft and cybercrime (the book should go to print this summer.)  Other than spelling and grammar tools in Google Docs, I used none. The editor seemed surprised by this. Maybe I will learn to use those tools, but I learned to write the old fashioned way. 

I am a dinosaur. I bought my first electronic typewriter when I was working on BA, a Panasonic with spell check and about a 20 page memory. I could edit and retype a chapter with the push of a button- what a huge step forward. I started law school just as online legal research was becoming the norm. I think I was the last class at the University of Louisville that had to master legal research in the print books, before being given access to the online databases. And I am glad I was trained that way, though I will never use Shepard's Citations again - ever! 

Computers have become a part of our daily lives in little more than 30 years, smartphones in less than 20 years.  There is more computing power in my phone, than NASA had to land men on the moon when I was growing up. It is not that the dinosaurs couldn't get the job done, but it took longer.  We can do so much more, so much faster today. I still believe that understanding the underlying process of research and writing, of capturing an image, makes a difference in how I use the tools to do it faster. In a way, I am the last of the bridge generation, between digital dinosaurs and digital natives. 

I struggled with this post. The Muses seem to have left on the grand adventure a few weeks ahead of me.  Inspiration has been hard to find. I had this post written, and left it to fester for a couple of days, and it hit me that the best part of it, was what was buried in the middle. I can hear a long ago editor shouting across the room, "don't bury the lead, put it first." I am so glad I learned from writers who knew how to write, even if it took 50 years for me to apply some of the lessons.  (Dave Snoffer, you made a difference in your far to few years.)