Sunday, November 26, 2023

A difficult decision but I will let my writings be prone to error



So please DO NOT consider me as an example if you are aspiring to write error-free writings.

Because I have started writing after a 7-year break, some of my friends spot mistakes in my writings on this blog of mine after I revived it in October 2022. A Maldivian writer friend said that my writing has improved a bit although not to the level of 2015 when I stopped writing.

I am now facing a dilemma: I can spot my own mistakes only to a certain extent. Any mistakes that my brain tends to overlook need to be found by an "outsider" but I find that my friends are too busy with their own lives. I had this experience when one of my friends took 3 weeks to go through a draft and give the go-ahead to publish the "corrected" blogpost.

Alternately, we are living in the age of AI (artificial intelligence) and my friends are divided whether I should make use of it to "perfect" my writings by getting rid of all "mistakes" or letting the "errors" be there to show that human beings are "not perfect" and are "fallible".

My blogpost about the tree destruction scene in Avatar has become a very heated debate among my friends over the past 48 hours over the issue of the English language mistakes they have spotted and have identified two key decisions which they said I have to take into consideration:

1) Why not use AI, such as ChatGPT, to proof-read all my future articles because what's the difference anyway as "autocorrect", Microsoft Word's "spelling" and "grammar" corrections, in addition to software and apps like QuillBot helping in producing a "competent" and "error-free" article which is what is expected by readers - unlike "faulty" articles?

2) But this view is countered with the opinion that if I chose AI to "correct" my "mistakes", it won't be an article by me! So, there are the friends who are against me "correcting" my "mistakes" but letting them be there for everyone to see because then, my writings with the "human errors" will show that the writings are by "me" and not by some "intelligent machines, software, and apps". 

I think there is a valid argument in the second point. So I have settled for it - let all my errors be there for everyone to see, on the understanding that this blog is run by a fallible human like me, prone to error, and not run by an AI chatbot. 

I can only tell my readers not to take me for an example as far as their practice of English and Dhivehi languages are concerned because my writings will always have human errors as I won't be forwarding my articles to be proof-read by any humans (due to their busy-ness) or by an AI chatbot or software or app which, ultimately, I hope will demonstrate that my mistakes reflect my personal nuances in my writings, even if they are accompanied by errors in my writing. 

Though some people think I am good in both English and Dhivehi, I make no such claims, and therefore, people should remain aware that my writings are not examples to be followed by any writers hoping to write error-free skillful articles.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous1:43 PM

    I think you are doing fine with your posts. You don’t need to perfect them

    ReplyDelete