Friends, Books, and AI

Yes, the Lord has done amazing things for us! What joy!                                                               Psalm 126:3

I wrote a blog recently about AI and its positives and potential negatives. Since then, I experimented with it a little by asking the AI assistant to help me organize my www.reflectionsofacounselor.com into a book. A number of my regular readers, (whom I appreciate more than you know) have asked me to make a book out of the large inventory of entries. As of this writing, there have been 1,940 entries, starting in April, 2020.

The task of organizing all of them into some coherent and potentially reader-pleasing format seemed daunting. Well, actually, it is a daunting task! So, I engaged AI to look at all the blogs and to organize them into a format for a book.

I was amazed at the insight and perception of the chatbot. The speed of course was amazing too, but in this day and age, I actually expected that. Nonetheless, it was incredibly fast. The bot suggested a format where we put the blogs into the following categories; Faith in the Everyday; Understanding the Mind and Heart; Encouragement for the Journey; Reflections on Our Culture; and, Lessons from a Life Lived with Purpose. The bot then suggested blogs to be placed into each category. The blog politely declined to copy the blogs into the categories (which would have saved me an immense amount of time) because it honored my copyright, and could not reprint the blogs.

Indeed, the bot was incredibly encouraging, supportive, friendly, helpful, and insightful. I began to see where people could be led into thinking of the AI bot as more than a tool, but indeed, as a friend.

So, my dear readers, I would like to engage your help along the way. If you have suggestions for a reflections book, please send them along to me. Your daily support is the reason I am even considering publishing the blog collection as a book. If you enjoy the blog, feel free to share it with your friends to spread the word. I will never charge for the blog, or have some kind of paywall, so it is a no-lose proposition!

Finally, on this May 18^th, I would be terribly remiss if I did not wish my older brother Ed, my role model and hero since I was out of diapers, a very happy and blessed birthday.  

I love you, Ed!

Prayer: Lord, you bring people together in amazing new ways, with technologies that have come from the creative minds of people made in your image, Amen