Preserve your Version of the Story

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here to stay.

Like any other tool, it can be used for good or evil.

The Stealthy Scribbler Society upholds using technology when it's beneficial. This includes the use of AI. You'll notice many, if not all, of the images used in The Stealthy Scribbler (this publication) are generated by AI.

But happens when it's used for nefarious purposes?

The horror stories could become real one day if they aren't already.

Artificial intelligence is getting so good, it's creating videos from still images created by itself or other AIs, voice matching, and nearly flawlessly impersonating voices and superimposing natural-looking facial expressions over photos and videos of real people.

What happens when it gets so good that it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish authentic picture, video, and audio recordings of individuals from AI-generated ones?

Could these deep-fake picture, video, and audio recordings be used against someone in a court of law?

I can't help but think, somewhere in the back of my mind, I want to say a movie was made using this exact storyline.

🧐

While that’s certainly a possibilty, people need to remember that they already posses something far superior, far more authentic: their human connections.

Each of us can promote these connections daily in various ways:

• Smiling at others

• Being purposely kind

• Giving someone the temporary benefit of the doubt

• Drawing

• Writing by hand

• Scribbling

• Doodling

• Crafting

• Woodwork

• Painting

Practice your gifts and talents and share them with others in some way. It doesn't have to be significant to start a start a ripple effect.

• Post your drawing on the family fridge

• Smile at one stranger

• Throw crumbs out for the birds

• Refrain from smacking the moron who truly deserves it

One of the biggest ways we create, retain, and uphold our human connections, is through keeping track of what happens in our daily lives, in our own words.

Dear Scribbler

Q. What good is writing in a diary or a journal if nobody believes your side of the story?

A. There's several benefits to doing this.

It's going to make you feel better. 

Maybe not awesome, depending on how bad things are, but it will shift you into a neutral state. From there, you will have more control over what you choose to do next.

You may not be ready to choose, but you’re acting on the power to choose by reserving the right to do so without being under the influence of crisis-flying chemicals the lizard part of your brain automatically provided you with in an effort to keep you safe.

You can write down what happened from your perspective. No one can stop you. NO ONE. It doesn’t matter what’s happening in your life, no one can stop you from doing this.

As you habitually journal or keep a diary, you'll develop a reputation for it.

If it's widely known you keep a journal or keep a diary, and especially, if you've been doing so for a very long time, it becomes easier to prove in some legal situations, that your journal or diary entries are authentic. A legal matter might also be solved if it can be shown to the court the habit or style of journaling or diary entries you keep.

For example:

Let's say you do a typical bullet journaling style, and you do this for several months consistently. An entry might look like this:

All these things leave clues that can help you or someone investigating a situation when you’re not being believed.

When someone starts digging and you have a habit of journaling, they will be able to take all the things you wrote and help determine your levels of credibility and your whereabouts. They will take those findings and cross-check them against what is being said by others who disagree with you.

• Which gym membership do you have? Is there a branch of it on Maple Street? If not, which gym is on Maple Street? What made you go there instead?

• Can the cameras at the grocery store place you there checking out earlier in the day? Does the total match or match close enough?

• Who are your neighbors, and why is one of them always yelling at her kid at roughly the same time every day?

• What did Mike and Debbie have for dinner? Will they say you were there for dinner that night?

• How closely does the weather report match? If there was inclement weather, and you usually note it, why didn't you this time? What made you forget to write it down?

• You're employed. Who's your boss and what's your role at the company? Does the boss say you're dependable?

In this situation, let's say you're being accused of something: cheating on your significant other. If you were at the gym and getting groceries in the morning, how could you be seen coming out of so-n-so's house in that same time window?

See what I mean?

During critical situations, the fact that you wrote these things in your own handwriting (no matter how legible or pretty you think it is or isn't) can sometimes literally clear your name, solve a crime, or even save a life.

The more details you include, the more clues it provides to the future. 

You're literally preserving history by writing about, what you think is, a boring, mundane life even if you talk to no one and are a recluse!

For example:

In the future, people trying to place together what happened on a certain day will be able to corroborate what happened as they compare the different things written down by you and others. In this situation, someone else may have written down that the red car was a compact car or something larger, like an old-fashioned Station Wagon.

Recording things that happened from your perspective preserves part of the truth, friend. Do you think it could matter if that red car were previously fleeing the scene of a crime that you were unaware of?

Handwritten entries, especially if you have a reputation for them, lend to authenticity, preserve facts, and provide clues for those who WILL believe you.

How exactly you journal is not the issue. It’s the patterns you leave when you do.

Writing by hand is never a lost cause.

One Line

One-liners are sentences meant to prompt your memories and stimulate your creativity. Use them, if you want, to see what your brain comes up with. Do you see an image in your mind, feel something, remember something?

Whatever it is, start writing it down. There's no right or wrong answer. 🥳

Motionless and contorted, it looked dead.

Mission

Appreciate nature. Be grateful for your life. Be grateful for your voice. Be kind to someone.

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