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Word Is Not My Copilot
Can we survive the AI world before dumbed-down writing defeats us all?
Sometimes I miss my Underwood. It was identical to that pictured above.
I replaced it — the one that my Uncle Porter had given me — with a Royal portable which got me through college and launched into a newspaper writing career a few years ago. Well, 70 years, but who’s counting.
I don’t miss the carbon paper or the inky ribbons, or the little wheel-eraser with its nifty brush for brushing away crumbs, or the soupy magic white-out that replaced the eraser but also stuck itself ferociously onto your clothes. All those trudges of the trade can stay in the past.
What I miss is being able to write my own sentences, spell my own words however I want to spell them and go about my writing without being constantly reprimanded by Spellcheck, Grammarly and their AI genius buddies who are sure they know better than I at any given moment.
And now . . . Copilot. “Elevate your content with Copilot!”
For the record, I am not a “content provider.” I am a writer. Writers really like to use their brains for elevation.
The Microsoft people, I fear, do not credit me with a brain. “Unleash creativity. With Copilot in Word, you can jump-start the creative…