Digital with Discernment's AI Use Statement
Original version posted July 24, 2025
Readers of Digital with Discernment know that concision is not my strong suit, but I will do my best to be very straightforward up front:
In writing Digital with Discernment, I do not use generative AI in any way.
In the future I might write more about my reasons for refraining from using AI in my writing, but I want to be clear: I have no intention of “jumping on the AI bandwagon” at some point in the future. I am not completely against the use of AI in any context, but I am deeply wary of its risks and unintended consequences (and frankly, I’m indignant or worse about some of its uses).
I write to share my perspective as a multifaceted, complex, human person. I write as a mother of young children (I still include my oldest in that designation, even though he is now a “tween”). I write as an American Millennial with a sister and friends on the cusp of (and within) Gen Z (not to mention, of course, my parents, extended family, and lovely friends of other generations). I write as a lifelong bibliophile, as well as a lover of math, logic, and analysis (i.e., puzzles and systems, not statistics). I write based on what moves me when I happen upon it, whether that’s in a book, on the Internet, or hanging on the wall of my local coffee shop. AI might be able to mimic my style, even fabricate anecdotes that sound like what a person of my background would share — but it can never truly have the experiences, values, and human life that I have. That is deeply meaningful to me.
As a bit of an aside, I chuckled when I read what Peco Gaskovski wrote in “Welcome to the Analog Renaissance: The Future Is Trust” — that he and his wife and coauthor Ruth have established credibility as humans rather than machines because they began publishing on Substack before the advent of generative AI. I am happy to claim that designation as well. I chuckled because I had actually thought of that aspect of the oncoming “AI revolution” when I started Digital with Discernment back in the March 2023. Accordingly, if I ever end up being published outside of Substack itself, expect to see me comment on that work in a brief post here, with a link to the full piece elsewhere (as I’ve seen several other writers do). I’m not sure I’ll ever become “worth” deepfaking or otherwise impersonating, but these are the kinds of things I’ve been thinking about since early 2023.
If you’re interested in more specifics:
“AI” is, of course, an umbrella term; for example, I think that Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin of the Center for Humane Technology are right in calling social media “humanity’s ‘first contact’ with AI.” The Substack AI Report from July 24, 2025 listed many different uses of AI which were being used by “publishers” (writers, artists, etc.) to a greater or lesser extent. They were: research, ideation/brainstorming, writing assistance, image generation, content repurposing, audio transcription, translation/multilingual, text-to-speech, design, audio editing, video generation, video editing, and voice cloning. I do not use AI for any of these.
To be nit-picky, as I sometimes tend to be, the nearest I come to using generative AI is in my use of Google search in place of a dictionary, and I essentially always skip past the “AI Overview” at the top, largely because I don’t trust its accuracy. (I haven’t invested in a “real” dictionary instead of the pocket dictionary/thesaurus that I have and sometimes reference, but if anyone has suggestions for specific dictionaries I should try to find at used book sales, please let me know!)
I also very occasionally use Google search as a thesaurus, but find myself doing so more rarely nowadays. If I can’t think of a different word, I’d rather take the time to let it come to me, rather than feverishly digging through the possibilities that the Internet surfaces (usually the right work does come to me, even if it takes a while). I also have less and less desire to use words that I could find in a traditional thesaurus but don’t feel like they match my “voice.” I think this is largely because I don’t feel genuine speaking the word out loud when I record my own article voiceovers. I use big or obscure words because I enjoy doing so, or because I truly feel they are the best word for what I’m trying to convey — not to sound smart or “jazz up” my writing.
If you have any further questions about my use of AI for Digital with Discernment (or if you want to send me a dictionary recommendation!), feel free to shoot me a message.