Colin recognition mirror — Read transcript
Automatically transcribed from the recording; some words may need correction.
I work in media. A lot of my life involves writing: articles, scripts, ideas, pitches... And these days, you can't really avoid the conversation about AI. Everyone's talking about how much faster we can produce things, and I've tried it. Some of the results are impressive, but there's something that bothers me. Sometimes I'll read what AI has written and think, 'That's perfectly good. But it doesn't sound like me.' It's polished. It's structured. It makes sense. And somehow, something's missing. Because writing isn't just about putting words together. It's how I discover what I think. Sometimes, I don't even know what I'm trying to say until I've written three terrible paragraphs, and somewhere in the fourth, there it is! That's the bit I don't want to lose. So when I came across DIALOGIC, I was interested in its approach. Rather than asking AI to write something for me, I started having conversations about what I was trying to express. I brought in a half-formed idea for an article. ARIS asked me what had made me interested in it. Then what I thought other people were missing. Then it challenged something I'd said, and suddenly I was arguing my position. Not with a colleague, with an intelligence that was helping me examine my own thinking. I found myself saying things I hadn't quite articulated before. And that's when it clicked. I didn't necessarily need AI to write better sentences. I needed something that could help me develop better thinking behind them. I started using the Creative Intelligence Studio to research perspectives, explore connections, and test different directions. Sometimes I'd ask for an opposing argument. Sometimes I'd explore how an idea connected with something happening in the world. And sometimes I'd just talk through a paragraph that wasn't working. The difference was that I could decide when I wanted suggestions, when I wanted criticism, and when I wanted to go away and write on my own. I wasn't trying to get the AI to sound like me. I was using the conversation to become clearer about what I wanted to say. And my writing started feeling more intentional. Not because every sentence was better, but because I knew why I was writing it. I still use generative AI for practical things. Research, organisation, getting through the less interesting parts of a project. But I'm much more conscious of where I want my own intelligence involved. Because my voice isn't just a writing style. It's my experience, my judgement, my sense of humour, the things I notice, the things I disagree with, and the connections only I might make. I don't want AI to replace that. I want it to help me develop it. And that's what I'm beginning to discover. The real opportunity isn't simply producing more content. It's becoming more capable of expressing something worth saying.