Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer
845 posts
Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer
@rdotinga
Indie scribbler, "incorrigible," & "some know nothing hack." Board member, @ahcj. Former prez, @asja_hq. Book agent: @annasproul. 🏳️🌈 [email protected]
San Diego Joined Nisan 2009
338 Following3.2K Followers
Korean is the only non-English language and culture I’m intimately familiar with, but there’s an entirely different manner of speech you must adopt when addressing elders, and there’s essentially no way to politely push back on a superior. My ex husband (a Korean from Korea) speaks English to any other Koreans he meets at work, because there is no way to address another Korean without an explicit hierarchy placement, and it simply doesn’t fit in with an American professional setting
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I genuinely think that English becoming the international standard aviation language has probably prevented many of these accidents from occurring. However hard it is to speak up in English, other languages have a much steeper authority gradient that makes it even worse
KC-10 Driver ✈️ 👨✈️ B-737 Wrangler@MCCCANM
This accident occurred due to a culture where the Captain is “always right”. He fixated on a minor issue & they ran out of fuel. The Engineer knew it, but was too timid. The culture of being beyond question had to change. It’s far better today & sometimes, the Captain is wrong.
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Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
It was around the time Jerry Falwell was mad about Bert and Ernie. I told my parents this made no sense, because I knew two guys in our synagogue who lived together, and they weren't gay. My parents said, well, actually...
nala@lectersbian
do you guys remember your first exposure to Gay people as a concept
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Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
Wow, a reporter was photographed asking questions of a senator and is now also asking questions about a congresswoman??
Sounds like a grand conspiracy, no other possible explanation.
DC_Draino@DC_Draino
Ready to see how the Swamp works? @brennanleach from NBC news is contacting @RepLuna’s former staff in an attempt to get them to go off record about the Congresswoman. Here is that same “reporter” with John Thune. According to the tipster, Brennan is looking to try to discredit Rep Luna on behalf of Thune to punish her for trying to pass Voter ID.
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Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
Being gay isn't a choice. Its something forced upon you as a child when someone in your class said "gaylordsayswhat" and you accidentally said what
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Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
The church on the cover of JD Vance’s forthcoming book about his conversion to Catholicism isn’t Catholic. It’s Methodist. thebulwark.com/p/track-aipac-…
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Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
To me, AI ethics are relatively easy. Think of AI as your very smart friend who sometimes thinks he knows more than he actually does. Fine to have him read over your piece to flag potential issues. Very foolish -- and unethical -- to have him write your piece for you.
Corbin Bolies@CorbinBolies
SCOOP: The New York Times cut ties with a freelance book review author after it found out he used AI to help draft a review...that pulled from a Guardian review published months prior. thewrap.com/media-platform…
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"A Virginia teen cut down what looked like an ordinary bush but unexpectedly his face started peeling in the shower" ecoportal.net/en/virginia-te…
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Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
This is a straw man conception of how people use AI.
We often underrate other people's rationality, thinking they apply new tools much more mindlessly than they really do.
Charlotte Alter@CharlotteAlter
Shout it from the rooftops!!! Research is thinking. Outlining is thinking. Writing is thinking. Any portion of that done by AI is less thinking done by you.
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Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
Fact-checking is a fantastic use of AI, actually.
History is my field, but I use AI to go over long (6+ paragraph) history tweets. It catches:
1- Absent-minded errors, stuff I knew.
2- Calls attention to where I may be wrongly emphasizing something (which I may ignore).
3- Actual factual errors!
I know history pretty well, but I'll still make mistakes. In every case, of course, I double-check everything. AI's job is to let me know there may be a problem, but I know it still hallucinates. It also has mainstream biases and a few other issues.
Are people going to stop using spell-check because they think we should all go back to dictionaries?
Kasa@KasaObake878
@HistoryBoomer @asymmetricinfo fact checking isn't something you should be using a chatbot for actually 🫤
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Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
“You can’t take a picture of this, it’s already gone.”
One of the most heartbreaking final lines in television.
cinesthetic.@TheCinesthetic
What scene from a movie or TV show just rips your heart out?
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Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
A woman who had sex with identical twins separately "within four days of each other" has been told by a panel of judges that it is "not possible" to identify which one is the father of her baby.
Full story ⬇️
trib.al/ZuJ3Rol
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Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
I don’t get the blowback to this tweet. Everything Megan describes is a completely reasonable use of AI as a tool. I also use it to talk through an idea then come back with the thing I wrote and get a copy edit from it. There is nothing illegitimate about that.
Megan McArdle@asymmetricinfo
I use AI to do research (i.e., find things to read, explain parts of academic papers I find ambiguous or confusing), transcribe interviews, generate pushback on my column thesis, suggest trims when I'm over my word count, sharpen podcast interview questions, and perform a final fact check on columns and editorials. But mostly it's compressing the ancillary tasks to the main job: reading, thinking, and writing.
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Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
The replies to this tweet are completely delusional. It's really weird to me the lengths at which people go to deny how useful AI can be and exaggerate its flaws.
Megan McArdle@asymmetricinfo
TL;DR: For a journalist, IMHO, think of your chatbot as a combination of an intern, a first-pass editor, and a fact-checker. It's job is to do grunt work and help you turn in cleaner copy, not to "inspire" you.
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Randy Dotinga, Freelance Writer retweeted
Amen. They have no idea how AI works in journalism. Example: AI shouldn't handle all fact-checking for a journalist. It should alert you to things that seem wrong so you can check them out.
Jessica Tillipman@JTillipman
Many of the replies and quote tweets in response to this post are absolutely bonkers. The only rational explanation I can think of is that people have no frame of reference for what Megan is describing, so that any AI-related task is considered "outsourced thinking" or some other form of improper delegation. If you have never used AI for the tasks she describes, everything sounds like "AI wrote my article."
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