The debate over the Artificial Intelligence (AI) software ChatGPT continues unabated. 

It’s clear the program has raised anxiety about plagiarism, dumbing down education and even soulless sermons.

But reaction to this latest digital innovation also has evoked suggestions about how to deal with the challenge.

Let’s remember that every invention and innovation responds to the desire of their human creators.  No tool is sentient (although at least one scientist believes that AI is). And thus, is neither benevolent nor malevolent.  Tools do only what their human masters dictate.

Getting past the fear of how ChatGPT may be misused and focusing instead on how people can benefit from it, is the key to defusing anxiety and embracing its potential.

If I were still practicing and teaching journalism, I’d welcome ChatGPT to my class to join my students in an open discussion. 

It’s here and now how do we use it?  As a writer, I think it’s a good, fast draft of what I may want to write.  And every good writer never publishes the first draft.  You revise and edit. 

You seek clarity, conciseness, correctness and—yes, probably decide that the alliteration in this sentence doesn’t work.

You ask what is the strength and weakness of this draft?  How do I improve it?  How can my students learn what the ChatGPT limits are?  How can they make the writing better?

Of course, there are reasons to be concerned about how some people will use this software to elude the often-hard work of creative human composition.  But in the right human hands and with the help of good proponents, this is one more helpful tool developed along the long road of human evolution.