It’s been almost three years since the introduction of ChatGPT (November 30, 2022). And while I don’t think it has quite taken over the internet, it has certainly made a very large and, at times divisive, impact on our world. It seems whenever I see or hear something online these days, my first thought is, Is this real? Or is it it AI? And I don’t suppose that it helps that I enjoy the talking baby videos as much as I do (real? or AI?). Our politicians seem to have a love/hate relationship with AI-generated or augmented content at the moment: some have embraced the technology yet others rail against it. The Guardian has an article on AI-generated campaign videos here. For good or evil, AI. is here to stay.

I dipped my toes into AI tentatively back in 2023 with a blog post on the post-apocalyptic television series The Last of Us. You can catch the series on HBO here, or read my post from February 2023 here. I had never played the video game the streaming series was based on so I used ChatGPT to delve a little deeper into some of the themes and possible end-of-series scenarios presented. The series wasn’t meant for everyone but it definitely held one’s attention over the course of nine episodes.

After that initial foray into AI (Artificial Intelligence) I began to explore how it could be helpful in some of the areas I have interest. Recently I used it to rewrite a brief blog post on an article I submitted, having felt that it needed a good edit to get my point across. It wasn’t…half bad actually. I used Chad (my term for my online helper) to write a four-week devotional booklet for Advent. I gave it a theme to explore, possible characters to include, a couple of scriptural references and we were off! It came up with scripture focus, theme, devotional angle, and application. It would have added graphics and compiled a PDF booklet if I had kept at it. All in under a minute. If time is a precious commodity, AI can be a gamechanger. For our small group’s participation in Trunk-or-Treat this year, I had AI create a couple of images to use for inspiration.

Vacation planning? Yep. An eight-day itinerary for a visit to Scotland and travel through England. A seven-day family vacation to Maine with stops in Pennsylvania and Connecticut along the way. That stop in Connecticut was to visit a cemetery with headstones of my earliest American ancestors. ChatGPT ran a population growth calculator to see how many possible ancestors I might have from Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather Thomas Ranney (who died at 97 in 1713).

Here’s the answer with initial suppositions: Let’s calculate how many people would be there after 350 years, with the following assumptions: Each generation spans 30 years. The initial family has 4 children. Each subsequent family has 4 children who marry and have 4 children. In the 11th generation alone, there would be 4,194,304 people. Thanks Chad! That’s a lot of Christmas cards to address. (photo from findagrave.com)

I’ve since used ChatGPT to design a deck for the cottage, enhance the bathroom, and redesign my outfit to look more “Ralph Lauren” inspired. It’s created a garden layout that features deer-resistant plants and gave me a separate planting guide. For one gardening project, it created an entire proposal complete with an RFP for contractor bid submissions.

It’s done a reasonable job on paint color samples for my neighbor’s house; calculated how many solar panels I would need to go off grid; created a Fall menu for an outdoor party; it wrote a seven-day gluten free menu plan along with a two-week menu plan (and shopping list!) for another person.

It even gave me an estimate of how many adults in the US own cellphones (As of 2024, approximately 98% of U.S. adults own a cellphone of some kind, with about 91% owning a smartphone.)

So then I’m curious: how are you using AI, or are you? At work? Blog posts or other personal correspondence? Are you involved in video or media production and using AI either to enhance or create content? I guess what I am really asking is, where do we go from here?