COMMENT: As a writer – both journalist and author – I should be terrified of AI. After all, super computers can access galaxies of information, analyse it all and produce something in a readable form.

It can copy your writing style and process information that an ordinary human writer would take days to wade through.

It can also be creative – or at least feign creativity. I asked Claud.AI to define what Haiku is. This was its reply

A haiku is a form of Japanese poetry with a very specific structure: three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively, for a total of 17 syllables. It traditionally focuses on nature, seasons, or a single vivid moment, often with a sense of contrast or surprise — though modern haiku in English can cover any subject.

It’s deceptively simple — the constraint forces you to distil an idea down to its essence, which is what makes a good one satisfying.

Okay, I replied, if you’re so clever, write a haiku about computers. This was the result, produced in a fraction of a second:

Silent circuits hum,
logic gates open and close
thought without a mind.

That’s pretty good, but when you search other platforms, you will find all of the same phrases pop up in different poems about computers – some written by humans, some not.

There’s a joke about economists that if you ask 10 of them a question, you’ll get 11 opinions. So last week I asked two AI platforms about the potential consequences of scrapping negative gearing.

The responses were slightly different but came to the same conclusions (read it here). But there was another aspect to this: I actually understood the issues for the first time.

In the recent past I have pulled AI up on a couple of factual errors, for which it immediately apologises. And, unlike humans, it double checks, corrects and gets stronger. And that’s the truly scary part.

This was originally posted as an editorial on the free weekly Flat Chat newsletter.