Cal Newport, on using AI for academic paper writing:

Papers that are more difficult to read might be worth it if AI increased the amount of good science being produced. But this doesn’t seem to be the case. Organization Science is desk-rejecting (e.g., rejecting a paper before even sending it to peer reviewers) nearly 70% of manuscripts that made heavy use of AI. This number drops to 44% for papers written without AI.

As I discussed on our recent obligatory Leader Fables episode on AI, this tracks with my own experience when reading professional writing. While the amount of written material I review has increased dramatically, the quality of the writing has decreased. It’s decreased to the point where I often ask for revisions or more succinct summaries after only a cursory review.

Clear writing is a byproduct of clear thinking. Put another way: writing is thinking. When we outsource our writing to the robots, we run the risk of blunting the very thinking that, as knowledge workers, makes us valuable.

Dave Rogers, on his use of an everything bucket:

The impetus for building Captain’s Log came from some success I was having automating the marmot, working with guys like Jack Baty, and the folks at the Tinderbox meetups and at the forum. The inspiration was Proteus.

Having created it, using it has been, well, a hit or miss affair. Mostly miss.

But today, it’s becoming an integral part of my life, to the point where I’m beginning to alter my daily habits to better exploit its value. (I found the link to the Proteus paper in Captain’s Log, because I knew I’d bookmarked it. Searching on “notebook” surfaced it quickly, though it’s clear I need to do some organization.)

Like Dave, I was inspired by Thomas Erickson’s Proteus HyperCard project. So I, too, built a Tinderbox for daily logging—I call it my “LifeBox”.

I’ve been adding entries to my LifeBox for over a year now. The entries are mostly personal journals, but also reading notes, project reference material, and other odds and ends.

While I can’t claim that the logging practice has helped my memory, it has been an outlet for processing my interests, feelings, and daily musings. I’m most excited to use my LifeBox to see how my thinking evolves over time. As I noted, I’m only a year in, but I plan to continue this practice until I no longer have the will to write.