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I am a big early adopter. So change is usually well received by me at work. AI is increasingly being used in medicine and it supports my belief that data should drive decisions. We all have stories about gut feelings. But follow the data and you will find trends and outcomes. I am however very sad to see the demise of the very idiosyncratic cursive handwriting. I cannot find anything similar to replace it.

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It's funny because I had a section about cursive writing in here that I deleted, so you read my mind! I taught cursive in homeschool, but have since realized it was a fairly impractical skill and most schools no longer teach it at all. If most writing is on a keyboard, there's sadly no need for good penmanship!

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AI writing tools are great, and perhaps their very existence will be good for high school essays, because now you have to come up with prompts that the AI struggles with, those that involve deep personal reflection and experience. AI is perfect for giving outlines and a starting point, but especially when it comes to topics that’ll require close readings and in depth research and analysis, AI is still quite limited.

The points that Berry made about technology are interesting, but I believe short sighted. I do agree with having technology that mom and pops can sell and repair though. I don’t like handing over my ability to be productive to the whims of public ally owned corporations either. My wife and I recently switched over to all Apple products because our PCs kept breaking down over and over again, after being loyal PC owners and users our entire lives. It comes down to very limited choices with tech today, and I don’t like it either. But my feelings on Berry and his essays are mixed. He brings up good points, and I completely respect his way of writing the old fashioned way, but his often very conservative viewpoints rub me the wrong way. Tech can be divisive but also bring people together in new and unexpected ways, so I always have cautious optimism when it comes to any new emerging tech.

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It won't be long before AI catches up though...

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