tomgromak.com — Writing and music from Tom Gromak — on technology, creativity, and figuring things out as I go.

I’ve started making music regularly again, for the first time in years. Before I would sit down and noodle, creating snippets and lots of eight-bar loops, but none of it resulted in a start-to-finish track. I simply could not figure out how to get past a mental block that kept me from finishing, and then I’d get angry with myself and give up in disgust or move on to the next shiny object.

I have a wonderful new group of eighth graders in my Tech Projects class, and they’ve been hard at work brainstorming ideas, narrowing them down, doing research, and finally picking their best one. At that point, I have them create a project proposal that asks them to step back and think about various aspects of their idea, even though they want to dive in immediately. This isn’t easy, and it doesn’t come naturally.

Last week, I got an email from an ed tech company inviting me to a conference that included speakers, a fancy dinner, and ways to explore their products in detail. I get these all the time. I usually don’t click through, but I did in this case and looked at the product. It was an AI-powered graphic organizer for students that had plenty of other things clamped onto it, nothing special.

I’m having a harder time than usual getting back into the groove of the school year. My rhythms are off, I can’t find things that I need without a lot of digging, and my sleep patterns are completely disrupted. Some life transitions happen slowly, so that you barely notice things have changed until you’re nearly there. Others tear through you like a storm, jolting you from one place to another without enough time to process.

One of the worst things about AI is how it validates my intelligence in plausible ways. I’ll reject an idea it comes up with and offer one of my own, and it tells me “your idea is much better, here’s why,” with specific details about my brilliance. Who wouldn’t want to believe it? The fact that the compliment isn’t coming from a being with any experience in the real world, and is actually from a computer that’s tuned toward sycophancy can easily slip my mind.