I’m a former IT professional who, instead of going gently into ‘that good night’, chose instead to take up a Creative Writing course online at Tabor. Like everyone, I have my flaws but this ‘tortured artist’ has something compelling to offer. What if I can use issues like anxiety to add depth and tension to my characters? Challenges can be turned to advantages. For example, to de-stress, I like to go on long walks and use the time to think about my writing. (That is unless my two school age kids want to come too.) I’m fascinated with AI. I see AI as a useful tool, and I expect it to keep blowing our minds for some time to come. I see a trend where AI exceeds the expectations of the AI sceptics, but never really lives up to the extreme hype of the AI alarmists and optimists. Like a lot of things the truth is somewhere in between. We should not be afraid of robots taking over the world, but we should be cautious about letting companies and governments use AI to control our lives. I see that as a gold mine of potential stories. As a software developer, I learned that to get the best result, I needed to ask the right questions. Asking the right questions right at the start can save a lot of time. For me the right question is, ‘How can I use reader’s concerns about AI to draw my readers into cautionary stories that are all too real, and still give them hope over the hype, and do all that in an entertaining, and non-preachy way?’
