How We Learn
Over the past year, I have become fascinated by the specific kind of writing involved in working with generative artificial intelligence, specifically developing the procedural knowledge required in crafting what to tell a bot to do. Being able to produce a meaningful response from a platform like ChatGPT or MidJourney requires its own language, its own nuanced, cumulative iteration, and rests heavily on having a deep wealth of existing, declarative knowledge upon which to layer a prompt.
Being able to craft a great output relies heavily on technical skill but being able to share it with the world has been a step far outside of my comfort zone. Earlier this year I decided to begin sharing my work on Instagram, which compounded my declarative and procedural knowledge of prompt crafting with the conditional and affective knowledge domains of creating for an effective social presence. This process has been much more challenging.`
The conditional knowledge required in when and where to speak, who to respond to and why, or even where to shut the conversation down, leans heavily into the idea of Kairos, an experience that I have largely experienced through trial and error. That in-built sense of knowing when to act, when to decide, and when to read the digital room to an extent that one knows what ‘the right time’ to take an opportunity means.
In this work I’ve needed to adjust my digital affective knowledge, which is different from my real-world affective knowledge. Attitudes and emotions are expressed differently online, and much is missed in intent. So far, I’ve found the most effective approach for me emotionally is to write minimally, lean on word and phrase blockers to filter out incendiary messages, and ultimately, to let the work speak for itself.
The work of adjusting my declarative and procedural knowledge in making work through its additive application in the real world through conditional and affective knowledge isn’t new for me as I do this all day at work but has often been uncomfortable in the context of work that’s more personal.
