Happy couples often speak in a "we"

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A University of California study showed that couples who use pronouns like "we," "our" and "us" showed less stress and were more positive toward each other. Those found to be less satisfied in their marriages used pronouns like "me," "I" and "you." Happy couples often speak in a "we." As in, "we had a nice time at the party" and "we had a major plumbing problem at the house last week." The idea is that unconsciously they've formed a sense of being a part of a team and life is happening to both of them.  

Rather than waste energy blaming each other they see a problem as something they both need to solve. So they divide tasks, brainstorm, resolve and move forward. LIfe is better when the blame is minimized and the challenge (whatever it may be) is addressed by both people.

M. Gary Neuman writing in the Huffington Post 

Studying AI Writing

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Just as young artists learn to paint by copying masterpieces in museums, students might learn to write better by copying good writing. One researcher suggests that students ask ChatGPT to write a sample essay that meets their teacher’s assignment and grading criteria. The next step is key. If students pretend it’s their own piece and submit it, that’s cheating. They’ve also offloaded cognitive work to technology and haven’t learned anything. But the AI essay can be an effective teaching tool, in theory, if students study the arguments, organizational structure, sentence construction and vocabulary before writing a new draft in their own words. -Hechinger Report

AI Tools Fall into Two Buckets: Automation & Collaboration

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AI tools can be generally divided into two main buckets: In one bucket, you’ll find automation tools that function as closed systems that do their work without oversight—ATMs and dishwashers. In the second bucket you’ll find collaboration tools, such as chain saws, word processors. Automation and collaboration are not opposites, and are frequently packaged together. Word processors automatically perform text layout and grammar checking even as they provide a blank canvas for writers to express ideas. The transmissions in our cars are fully automatic, while their safety systems collaborate with their human operators to monitor blind spots. In any given application, AI is going to automate or it’s going to collaborate, depending on how we design it and how someone chooses to use it. -David Autor and James Manyika writing in The Atlantic

Pluck the Day!

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“Carpe diem,” is taken from Roman poet Horace’s Odes, written over 2,000 years ago. As everyone and their grandmother knows by now, “carpe diem” means “seize the day.” 

But “carpe diem” doesn’t really mean “seize the day.” As Latin scholar Maria S. Marsilio points out, “carpe diem” is a horticultural metaphor that, particularly seen in the context of the poem, is more accurately translated as “plucking the day,” evoking the plucking and gathering of ripening fruits or flowers, enjoying a moment that is rooted in the sensory experience of nature. “Gather ye rose-buds while ye may” is the famed Robert Herrick version.   

Gathering flowers as a metaphor for timely enjoyment is a far gentler, more sensual image than the rather forceful and even violent concept of seizing the moment. We understand the phrase to be, rather than encouraging a deep enjoyment of the present moment, compelling us to snatch at time and consume it before it’s gone, or before we’re gone.

“Seizing” the day brings up images of people taking what they can get, people who can get things done—active, self-reliant individuals who are agents in pursuit of their own happiness, reflected in the #YOLO-infused, instant-gratification-obsessed consumer culture that exhorts us to “Just Do It” by buying products.

Chi Luu writing in Jstor Daily

AI Writing Feedback

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Students would generally learn more if they wrote a first draft on their own. With some prompting, a chatbot could then provide immediate writing feedback targeted to each students’ needs. In surveys, students with AI feedback said they felt more motivated to rewrite than those who didn’t get feedback. That motivation is critical. Often students aren’t in the mood to rewrite, and without revisions, students can’t become better writers. It’s unclear how many rounds of AI feedback it would take to boost a student’s writing skills more permanently, not just help revise the essay at hand. Studies (have found) that delaying AI a bit, after some initial thinking and drafting, could be a sweet spot in learning. -Hechinger Report

The AI Motivational Issue

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Students who use AI tools to complete assignments tend to do better on homework—but worse on tests. They’re getting the right answers, but they’re not learning. The findings suggest that simply believing information came from an LLM makes people learn less. It is like they think the system is smarter than them, so they stop trying. That’s a motivational issue, not just a cognitive one. AI doesn’t have to make us passive. But right now, that’s how people are using it. -Wall Street Journal

a Well-Meaning Lie?

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When caught lying (paternalistically or otherwise), people often defend themselves by saying they lied to protect the other person. But before lying to protect someone’s interests or feelings, ask yourself not only whether you are lying to protect them, but also whether that person would believe your lie was well-intended if they found out. In several studies, we found that people were not likely to believe paternalistic lies were well-intended, and reacted poorly to these lies even when the liar communicated good intentions. However, people were more likely to believe that paternalistic lies were well-intended when they were told by people who knew them well or had reputations as helpful, kind people.  

Even though paternalistic lies are often well-intentioned, if uncovered, they will usually backfire. Lying may be helpful when there is no ambiguity about the resulting benefits for those on the receiving end. But in most other circumstances, honesty is the best policy.    

Adam Eric Greenberg, Emma E. Levine, Matthew Lupoli writing in the Harvard Business Review 

Good Friction

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I’m personally excited about AI and think it can improve our lives in a lot of ways. But at the same time I’m trying to be mindful of secondary effects and unintended consequences. Sometimes the friction and inconvenience is where the good stuff happens. Gotta be very careful removing it. I’m personally trying to be mindful about keeping good friction around. -Geoffrey Litt

Breaking Through The Wall

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The squeegee of window washer Jan Demczur is in the Smithsonian. His determination and willingness to use what was handy on the morning of September 11, 2001, put it there.

The Polish immigrant was riding in a north tower World Trade Center elevator when a hijacked plane hit the building. The elevator came to a stop on the 50th floor. That's when Demczur and other stranded workers pried open the door, revealing a solid wall.

Rather than give up, Demczur used his brass squeegee handle to hack away at it. He eventually broke through the wall and led the group to safety just moments before the tower fell.

Got a wall to break through in your life? There's probably a tool at your disposal. Work with what you've got and refuse to give up.

Stephen Goforth

Getting hired in the age of AI

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If you can say you worked a job where you had to show resiliency and adaptability, those are things that employers are looking for. We are individuals with unique experiences, unique energy and unique resilience. That's what we're going to get hired for. – Aneesh Raman, chief economic opportunity officer at LinkedIn https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20250825-aneesh-raman-young-people-employment-opportunities-katty-kay-interview

Handling offensive behavior

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Whenever possible, express your feelings about offensive behavior from a positive rather than a negative perspective. Negative expressions state your dislike, as in “I hate you when you do that,” “You make me angry,” “You make me feel insecure and unloved,” or “You’re insensitive and overbearing.” You can be more effective if you focus on the common goals and the shortcomings of the interaction, rather than your hatreds.

Goal oriented statements might be, “I think that your behavior and my reaction to it are preventing us from having a pleasant relationship.”

You might try new ways to express your feelings, using metaphors on describing the concrete aspects of your emotional reactions. Thus you might express embarrassment by the metaphor “I feel naked and exposed,” or express conflict by “I feel my head spinning in two directions at once.” Striking metaphors may produce a greater impact than the accustomed “emotional words” that have been worn out in your interchanges with others.

Sharon and Gordon Bower, Asserting Yourself

AI automation versus collaboration

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"Using AI well will require knowing when to automate versus when to collaborate. This is not necessarily a binary choice, and the boundaries between human expertise and AI’s capabilities for expert judgment will continually evolve as AI’s capabilities advance. Although collaboration is not intrinsically better than automation, premature or excess automation—that is, automation that takes on entire jobs when it’s ready for only a subset of job tasks—is generally worse than collaboration." -David Autor and James Manyika writing in The Atlantic 

The DuckDuckGo AI Option

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When you use ChatGPT, Claude or Llama technology within DuckDuckGo’s chatbot, the company acts as a middleman that limits what the AI companies know about you and what you’re chatting about. DuckDuckGo says that when you use its chatbot, your conversations aren’t used to train AI for DuckDuckGo or any of its partner AI companies. Your chats may be saved only anonymously for, at most, 30 days, with limited exceptions. And the AI companies don’t have access to personal information such as your device’s unique digital ID number, which could be used to assemble dossiers on your habits. -Washington Post

This is a Mistake

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A few years ago, I saw a cartoon of a man on his deathbed saying, “I wish I’d bought more crap.” It has always amazed me that many wealthy people keep working to increase their wealth, amassing far more money than they could possibly spend or even usefully bequeath. One day I asked a wealthy friend why this is so. Many people who have gotten rich know how to measure their self-worth only in pecuniary terms, he explained, so they stay on the hamster wheel, year after year. They believe that at some point, they will finally accumulate enough to feel truly successful, happy, and therefore ready to die. This is a mistake, and not a benign one.  

Arthur C. Brooks writing in The Atlantic

A truth about today’s AI Tools

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"A truth about today’s AI tools: They’re not really information experts. They have challenges determining which source is the most authoritative and most recent. It’s fair to ask whether relying on any of these AI tools as your new Google is a good idea. In many ways, AI is best suited for complex questions that take some hunting. In the best cases, AI tools could find needles in a haystack — answers that weren’t obvious in a traditional Google search." - Washington Post

25 Professional Journalism Organizations

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