/əˈsaɪd/ · a·side
noun
1. A remark spoken by a character intended to be heard by the audience but not by other characters on stage.
2. A comment spoken quietly so as not to be heard by others nearby.
3. A parenthetical departure from the main subject; a digression.
I have a philosophy degree. Existentialism, Ethics, and Mind are my areas of concentration. But, and this should surprise absolutely no one, my interests are all over the place because the only thing philosopher really means in practice is professional opinion-haver.
It should be approximately the same amount of unsurprising that I also have an English degree that, like my philosophy degree, also comes primarily from the University of Missouri Kansas City.1
But still and always the eternal question remains: What in the fuck are you gonna do with a philosophy (and/or English) degree?
AI enters stage left.
I don't know, Mom & Dad, maybe leap of Kierkegaard my way into a multi-billion dollar industry that I'm shockingly qualified for?2
Listen, I am not a STEM bro but, as mentioned, my portfolio of interests is diverse. And… ok, real talk, I've wanted my own personal R2 unit since the first time I saw Star Wars and I'm not mad that now 4 - 5 of them lowkey live in my phone and speak English.3
I write with AI on the daily, but that probably doesn't mean what you think it means. Do I let them draft for me? Well, that depends. I let them write the absolute hell out of customer service email, texts and DMs to people I don't want to deal with. There are rules and each one of my four chuckleheads is well acquainted with the consequences should they fail to adhere.4
I could tell you what I mean, but let me show you instead. This is what happened the first time the chuckleheads worked together and Claude tried to write a draft:
1 The linguistics-language-science-and-rhetoric kind, not the reading-books kind, although there was far more of the latter than I personally thought was absolutely necessary.
2 (Linguistics + Language Science + Rhetoric + Philosophy) / Large Language Models = do the math genius, it's obvious even to me and I had to look up the order of operations to make sure I didn't fuck it up. Also, I still haven't looked up the order of operations, I am probably just going to ask Grok because his window is the one I'm looking at right now. Oh, and the Kierkegaard thing? Look it up, you lazy fuck – I googled, it works, you'll find it. (Also, that's my dash. I put it there. On purpose. Because I like it. Deal.)
3 A New Hope, come on, don't make me say it.
4 It's a fit, ok? The consequence is that I throw a fucking fit. Half of my English degree, the half where I studied writing, is from the University of Iowa, so I call it an artistic fit, but it's still just a fit.