Boof Jark: My AI Pledge

A wise man once said that one man’s software is another man’s AI. As such, it’s important we establish some kind of clear, working definition of what’s being referred to when it comes to AI-generated content. For example, the ghosts in Pac-Man are AI. That’s not what we’re talking about. Spellcheck is arguably a kind of AI, but it’s not what we’re talking about, and I’ll even give a pass to predictive text for reasons that will hopefully become clear as we progress. Case in point, I only had to write “prog” and follow it up with the tab key to write the rest of “progress”. Another writing tool I feel I should disclose use of is an oldie called Grammatik. It launched around 1981 by Aspen Software before eventually being absorbed into Corel's WordPerfect, which was how I was introduced to it circa mid 1990’s. Bear in mind, this was not a Large Language Model trained on all the text in the world. I have absolutely no idea how it worked, but it’s not important because outside of obvious things like run-ons caused by a misplaced period, I never relied on it more than I trusted my own two eyes giving my paper a once-over (and that was only the first line of defense). It was also oddly fixated on the idea of passive voice, a grammatical concept that I think I understand and I know I’ve had explained to me countless times, but I couldn’t spot it in the wild or stop myself from writing it if my life depended on it. If anyone knows a really good mnemonic for it, I’d love to hear it. It’s also worth noting that Grammatik couldn’t really learn as you wrote. At best, you could tell it what to ignore, but it wouldn’t remember what you told it to ignore the next time you reopened the document, so it was only useful if you wrote in crazy, uninterrupted marathon sessions a la Jack Kerouac. Most importantly, Grammatik couldn’t offer suggestions for how to revise something beyond “You’ve started every sentence in this paragraph with the same word. Avoid repetition.”, it certainly couldn’t offer suggestions about tone, and it definitely could not fabricate a full essay on my behalf from a briefly descriptive prompt. I was still doing the work, and that’s the key distinction to keep in mind. 

To put it another way: Who is driving the car? The one in the driver’s seat with the wheel in hand, or the one in the passenger seat giving directions? The officer who pulled you over already knows, but he’d really like to hear it from you. 

I don’t know if it was on Medium or Substack where I saw about a half-dozen AI generated images in a row while scrolling and saw red for a moment before closing the tab, toppling a chair, and storming out of the room grumbling about the decline of Western Civilization. That’s a slight exaggeration; I would never do that to a perfectly innocent chair. Besides, the last thing you want is to make a chair mad at you. They won’t stand for it. 

What upsets me most about this trend is the fact that these writers are often the first, loudest, and yet most eloquent at bemoaning the fates and predicaments of artists, creatives, and professionals in general in the face of this ever-changing landscape that AI is slowly consuming. It makes me want to grab them by the shoulders, shake them like they’re the first character to go hysterical in a disaster movie, and scream, “YOU ARE NOT HELPING!” and finish off with a slap across the cheek. For the record, I have the kind of upper body strength that makes Mr. Burns look like Sugar Ray Leonard at the height of his career, so if you’re afraid of this potentially becoming reality for you, rest assured you’ll barely feel a stiff breeze. I’ll also likely collapse from the exertion while breathily asking if you’ve had enough, so the only pain you’re guaranteed to feel in the whole ordeal is the pain in your sides from laughing.

I made a note on Substack (their version of a Tweet) to essentially complain and vent, vowing that if I saw an AI header image to an article, I wasn’t going to read it. I wasn’t addressing anyone in particular; it was not about naming and shaming. As you may have heard from your parents at one point while disciplining you, I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at what happened. Moreover, I'm saying this because I want you to do better, and I know you’re more than capable of it, whatever your self-doubt is saying about you right now. 

As for doing better, these are your options.

1. Learn to draw and/or take photos. 
2. Use a stock image service; you’ll be paying real artists or at least using works volunteered by willing artists. 
3. Commission a human artist directly. 

This is the part where I acknowledge that I am fully aware of the potential pitfall of my pledge in that I may well mistake something genuine for something AI-generated, therefore missing out on something authentic, inspiring, compelling, and any other praise I could throw at it. That said, let’s be real, a lot of what we collectively refer to as AI Slop is pretty samey. I think the best description I ever heard for it is, “Well-rendered but badly-drawn” with tells such as heavily-detailed shading and color gradients while the proper lacing of shoes and/or number of fingers on a hand is spotty at best. Basically, a painterly once-over of a hasty sketch. Even more basically, polished shit. There are other descriptors, but these are the most polite. 

“Well, those AI generators can make some really photorealistic results that are harder to detect, especially if you know how to—“ 

If you’re willing to put that much effort into hiding your use of AI, you have even less of an excuse to not employ any of the alternatives I’ve listed. 

Before I go, I’ll reward you for getting this far with an explanation of just what in Hel’s Realm Boof Jark is. I don’t know where it was posted, maybe Instagram or LinkedIn, but it was an image of two boats on the shore of a deserted island, one filled with fruits and vegetables (along with eggs and a rooster because MidJourney doesn't know how poultry reproduction works), the other filled with all manner of meats, including a package of Boof Jark. I mean, you seriously couldn’t be bothered to take the most basic pen tool and write some block letters on a white box? 

Speaking of handwriting, which I’m notably not using for this, I’ll close with a story about Bob Ross. He once received a letter from a fan saddened that he couldn’t follow along with the painting sessions because his hands shook too much. Bob Ross, being the absolute legend that is Bob Ross, assured this person, “Well, then you can draw trees better than I can, because trees are rarely straight.”

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