Analyse this!

Wanna know how to improve your writing? There is a simple, quick, tried and tested method.

Tried and tested by who?

By me, as it happens, and I can guarantee that it will work for you. I know what I am talking about. Not always, of course, but certainly in this case.

Here’s how to do it

One: Copy the following text string:

Critique the following with suggestions for improvement:

…into Google Gemini, or your own favourite Large Language Model, or lalamo (thanks Rick). Don’t hit send just yet. If you do, don’t worry, just ignore the response and start again.

Two: Copy the text of the work you want to improve and then paste it at the end of the text string already pasted. Now you can hit send.

Three: Bask in the glory of any enthusiastic praise heaped upon you by Gemini or whatever lalamo, but don’t spend all day doing it.

Four: Read through the areas for improvement and think about which points strike a chord. Make suitable changes accordingly.

Repeat as many times as necessary to get it right.

That's it folks

Oh, sorry, you think that's cheating? You think you are better than using AI to write your stories for your? You hate AI with a vengeance? (All comments I have had when mentioning how to make good use of Lalamos). You are, ultimately, cynical about the abilities of AI?

Good! You will find the above method even more effective, then. Because you will retain your own critical faculty and not surrender it to the machine. As I have said before, AI is not intelligent. AI cannot think or feel. It cannot judge or discriminate. It does not experience emotion. Sure, it can give you a good description of all of these things. But it cannot comprehend any of them. AI has no capacity to understand. It is a computer programme, a series of bits of data with algorithmic connections between them. Sure it can address you in a way that (sometimes) sounds as if it is a human addressing you, which is great. I have always refused to put too much effort into trying to learn how to use every new iteration of a computer language (the language of the computer programming community) so at least now the technical bods have put some effort into making their computer programmes speak a language I know and am comfortable with. Natural(ish) spoken and written English.

Also, when it comes to making decisions, people have been using artificial decision making tools for thousands of years. Some have made the mistake of thinking the tool makes the decision for you. It does not, it merely assists your decision making capacity, if you know how to use it.

I might add an anecdote from my own experience, c. 1980s CE. I then worked for a data processing company that, having difficulty making recruitment decisions, decided to implement a psychometric testing system for all new recruits. Rather than pay for a psychometric testing system consultancy firm to implement a suitable system, they instead photocopied the questionnaires but couldn't agree on the correct answers. Their decision support methodology was thereby hampered by (a) their dishonesty in the unlawful copying of the questionnaires and (b) was completely useless because the senior directors were too stupid to work out the answers to the questions and how these answers might affect recruitment decisions. Wankers!

So, we cannot expect our lalamo friend to rewrite our work, or come up with enough suggestions to make it perfect. All it can do is point out some of the structural issues, suggest what is passé or clichéd. Point out some of the technical errors and, in short, aid us in our quest to be constructively self critical. To the point we will be able to see what needs improving and improve it.

This is really, really helpful because it nudges the author into reappraising their work in a way that reflects current reader sensibilities.

The story linked above is a collaborative effort between me and my AI friend. What do you think

If you think that the lalamo will do the job for you, think again. It can't, it won't, you are a much better poet and author than it can ever be. You have feeling, experience, emotion, determination, creativity, artistic sensibility. You laugh, you cry, you shit and die. All of which feeds into your work.

Using a lalamo to aid your writing practice is no more cheating than using a keyboard to write your stuff rather than plucking a feather from a dead goose and dipping it into a solution of cow manure and pigments and then scratching it on the surface of a stretched piece of calf-skin.

The only good reason I have yet to hear for not making good use of AI, is that it requires huge server farm capacity, using up lots of energy and contributing to global warming. But if you are going to take a vegan approach to server farms then you have gotta give up video streaming, social media, and throw your phone into a landfill someplace.

Back to the point of this article, why not try using a lalamo to help you to improve your work? Go on, give it a go, if you haven't sneakily done so already. Please tell me if it worked for you and/or come up with your own suggestions on how to make the most of lalamo apps.

This method also works with school homework but don’t tell your fuddy duddy old teacher. They may want to fail you, put you in detention or worse. Give you a lecture on the good old days before mobile phones and social media.

Further reading

Which AI?

Lalam (or lalamo): What is it?

Can a large language model help edit a work of creative writing?

Other AI and futuristic writings by Ray

Thanks for reading