Greetings from London. This week in the newsletter:
a personal meditation as a writer and therapist on AI and the future of work;
an opportunity to get a free copy in exchange for a review on Amazon (UK), and an ardent plea for reviews on Amazon with a handy link;
this week’s interviews/podcasts with writer Eric R. Burgess and therapist Graham Johnston, in which we discuss the future of writing and therapy in the age of AI;
a handful of links to other resources you might find useful and fascinating.
I’m nearing the end of another work week: psychotherapy sessions, coaching sessions, and writing. As I described in this piece in The New Statesman, I used to think these jobs were utterly immune to automation. Now, I’m not so sure. After each fresh conversation, each podcast, each article I encounter on the subject of AI and the future of work, I find myself confused by and worried about things I never even considered before OpenAI came onto the scene.
When the first version of DALL-E was released in January of 2021, I wasn’t paying much attention and didn’t feel threatened, not being a visual artist. (The third version was just released.) It was when the verbally orientated ChatGPT was released in November 2022 that I started to feel qualms.
My fellow writers, many of them regular attendees at the virtual group London Writers’ Salon, didn’t know what to think either. At first there wasn’t much talk of it; then, gradually, anxieties and ambivalences began to grow. When a phenomenon is so novel, complex, and mysterious, we can’t get our heads around it, cannot tell whether it constitutes a threat or not.
For my own part, when it comes to my writerly activities, I’m developing a love/hate, embracing/fleeing relationship with ChatGPT.
Positive take as a writer? Well, over the last few months I’ve had to dig deep to produce written pieces to spread the word about all the important themes and issues in REBOOT. I wasn’t tracking how many I was producing — I only knew that I was exhausted, that continuing to dredge up articles about various topics from the book felt increasing like mining very deeply buried ore from an extremely dark mine.
(I recently received a summary email from the team that handled the publicity campaign for my recent book, rounding up all the publicity pieces I’d done over the course of a few months. Overall, there were about 30 pieces of coverage, roughly half of them original written pieces.)
So, for the last couple pieces, I almost couldn’t cope. My mind was shutting up shop. I knew the material inside and out, but couldn’t organise it to save my life. In desperation, I turned to ChatGPT, with a kind of embarrassment or shame, like I was cheating.
‘I need to write an 800 word article on technoference in the bedroom, to include snubbing the partner with one's phone, otherwise known as phubbing,’ I told ChatGPT. ‘I'd like to keep the focus on the relationship. What is a good structure?’
Certainly! ChatGPT said cheerfully, and laid out a simple skeleton, the kind of outline I never manage to make for myself (it just not part of my process). It provided exactly the leg up that I needed. The result, to my relief, felt very much my own.
Negative take as a writer? I just asked ChatGPT to write a paragraph on death and the digital in the style of Elaine Kasket, which it should be well equipped to do, given how much I’ve written that’s in the public domain, and that was probably used to train the AI. When I see how plausible it is that I could have written it, there’s no question that I feel threatened, worry about becoming redundant, fear losing out somehow, or being robbed of my voice.
And therapy? Well, there’s another conundrum. Digital technologies have served me hugely well in my practice, particularly over the past few years. Without the commute and stress involved in getting to the office, therapy has been more accessible and manageable for both me and many of my clients. Arguably, I’ve been able to show up to the work more fully present than before. All the research demonstrating the effectiveness and the relational depth that’s possible through technologically mediated therapy has been borne out in my experience.
But aside from its mode of delivery, the therapy itself has been the same as it would have been in the physical office. There are cutting-edge therapeutic technologies involving artificial intelligence and virtual reality that I never imagined during my training. It’s quite likely that I will never need to learn very much about these in order to continue to thrive in my work, and that my current ways of working will likely see me through to retirement.
But what if I’m wrong? I probably have at least 15 years of work left in me yet. What if, in my late 50s or early 60s, I need to retrain or expand my skills significantly into new spaces? Will I be up for it? Will I have the energy? The relative difficulty of changing direction in middle age, particularly when you were raised in an era where ‘jobs for life’ were still an (albeit rapidly diminishing) expectation, was one of the reasons I talked about modern challenges to work in the middle-adulthood chapter of REBOOT.
To make sense of it all, I talked to two folks. First, I sat down with writer Eric R Burgess. I know Eric from London Writer’s Salon. He’s the Chief Product Officer for psyML, which describes itself as ‘advocating for humanity at the forefront of artificial intelligence,’ a mission that I can definitely get behind. Eric has many strings to his bow — he’s a board game enthusiast and writes beautifully about grief — you can read all about him on https://sleekbio.com/erburgess and connect with his writing on Medium.
I’ll be uploading a fancier version of this interview for the podcast, but you can hear the un-fancy audio here.
My favourite quote from Eric from this interview:
Your input was there. It’s not like you just said, write a book idea and then come up with a title for it. You had to tell it what you were doing. It’s coming from you. That’s People should stop thinking about this as cheating or some other thing. It’s a life hack, it’s a shortcut, it’s a good way to be able to get where you’re going a little faster. I don’t think it’s shameful or you lose creativity in some way. Believe me, it’s not going to give you something that you’re going to fall in love with.
(I needed to hear that this week after using ChatGPT for my article outline!)
Then, I talked with Graham Johnston, who along with me contributed to Catherine Jackson’s excellent September 2023 article, The brave new world of AI therapy. Practitioner to practitioner, we talk about the different ways emergent technologies could be used in therapy now and in the future; the thorny ethical issues that arise; and how we should think about training therapists differently now, in an age of AI. With Matt Wotton, Graham is the co-author of A straight-talking introduction to therapy: What it is, how it works, how to get it.
Again, I’ll be publishing this interview within the podcast, but you can listen to the whole of it here.
As you may know, REBOOT was published in the UK on the 31st August! You can get your copy through the links on this page.
BUT, if you would like a FREE copy, UK readers can have one (for a limited time) in exchange for a relatively speedy review/rating on Amazon UK to satisfy the hungry algorithmic overlords. Comment here or email me on write@elainekasket.com for details. This would help so much.
Needless to say, if you have already read and enjoyed REBOOT, take a few moments to leave a review. Here’s a handy link to take you straight there.
I also have a few signed copies left over from the launch party, so if you become an annual subscriber to this newsletter/podcast, I’ll send you one of those signed hardback copies plus a paperback of my previous book, All the Ghosts in the Machine. Wow! What a bargain, eh?
How can one choose a mere handful of things about AI when talk of AI is everywhere? I barely dared to try, but here’s an attempt.
Here’s a personal example of the pendulum swing of emotions and opinions that characterises our concerned and questing relationship with AI right now. After I spoke with Eric R. Burgess, I was feeling quite optimistic. Then I listed to The Daily podcast and felt far less so. It was a different perspective, focused very much on authors’ rights. Listen here to The writers’ revolt against A.I. companies.
In July of 2023 the American Psychological Association published an overview article: AI is changing everything about psychology. Here’s what to watch for. The article highlighted some important ethical issues around bias in AI, and how that could play out when using it in psychotherapy. (For more on that overall, read this excellent Rolling Stone article from August 2023, These women tried to warn us about AI, centring the experience and knowledge of five women of colour, including Safiya Noble, author of Algorithms of Oppression.) Another excellent overview article about emergent technologies and therapy was already linked to above, but I’m highlighting it here too: The brave new world of AI therapy.
I’m closely associated with House of Beautiful Business, which styles itself as a ‘network for the-life centred economy’. They recently partnered with the Dr Angel Acosta and Acosta Institute for a panel session on Can AI heal us?
I often find the dispatches from the McKinsey Global Institute quite useful in getting an overall feel for the future of AI at work. Here’s a July 2023 report on Generative AI and the future of work in America. For a global view, have a look at the International Labour Organization’s report in August 2023, which predicted hat generative AI is likely to increase jobs throughout the world — however, there is a concern around the impact on women in both low- and high-income countries. The report says that, based on their research…
…any form of technological transition would have a strongly gendered effect, with a badly managed process disproportionately harming women, and a well-managed transition potentially creating important opportunities in terms of women’s empowerment.
Clearly, we need to be intentional and inclusive when thinking about uses and applications of AI, and how the potential to support or hinder less powerful and marginalised groups. The worst outcome of course would be that AI further cements or even augments existing social and economic inequalities.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for a newsletter on genetic genealogy, a completely fascinating topic, and a podcast featuring a wide range of voices.
Take care ‘til then.
Elaine
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