I’ve fully embraced our shiny new AI world and now use ChatGPT daily — for everything from fixing the windows on my mate’s 2014 Honda Jazz to getting advice on random health queries. It’s genuinely brilliant, and I’d recommend giving it a try.
A few months ago, I discovered I could use ChatGPT to help write posts. Typical use cases include:
- Tidying up spelling and grammar
- Making text more readable or expanding what I have written
- Adding background information on a topic
But the more I use these tools, the more ethical questions start to crop up — and I’d like your feedback as we consider an AI policy for Slugger.
For instance, I can give ChatGPT a link to a news item and tell it to “rewrite this in my style.” Thirty seconds later, I’ve got a rough draft of a blog post.
When the new pope was elected, I gave it his Wikipedia entry and asked for a summary. That became the basis of my blog post. Ideally, I’d have spent a few hours researching and writing it all from scratch — but instead, I had it published within ten minutes of the announcement, while still horsing my dinner into me on the sofa.
What I’m discovering is that AI helps me write more posts, faster. Slugger is run by volunteers — no one’s getting paid here. I’m not a journalist; I write because I enjoy it.
To me, AI is an assistant. It helps me work faster. Critics might say, “AI’s doing all the work,” but I see it as just another tool — like a chef using a food processor or a builder relying on power tools.
AI also lets me cover topics I don’t know much about. Take the recent India–Pakistan conflict. Ideally, I’d track down an expert at Queen’s and ask them to contribute. Maybe we’d get a piece a week later. Or, I can ask AI for a quick backgrounder and have something live that same day.
There’s a real skill in prompting AI — and you still have to review and edit what it gives you to make sure it’s not spouting nonsense.
Some of the mod team have raised concerns about AI use. Should AI-assisted posts be labelled? Declared in some way? Should AI posts have a different author, e.g., Slugger Bot?
I’m not sure how practical that is. Should we announce, “AI fixed the spelling”? With tools like AI now baked into MS Word, Google Docs, and everything else, AI-assisted content is fast becoming the norm. Labelling it feels about as relevant as saying, “This was typed on a computer.”
Already, many newsrooms are using AI, so the genie is out of the bottle.
What we shouldn’t do is pass off other people’s work as our own. It is technically possible to ask AI to copy and adapt someone else’s content — and that’s clearly not OK.
There is also the subject of AI images. It might surprise you to learn that I did not get Jim Alister to pose for this year’s April Fool’s Day. I am okay with AI images as long as they don’t look weird or maliciously misrepresent real people.
Bottom line: Slugger is a free site, run by volunteers. If AI helps me get more posts up, faster, that’s a good thing. The alternative is fewer posts — and missed stories. I’ve got a day job. Time is tight. If my AI sidekick helps me hit “publish” before 7:30am, that’s a win in my book.
Going forward, my posts will likely fall into two categories:
General posts on news events: Often, I want to get a post up to let people talk about an event. As you might imagine, I am not an expert on everything everywhere, so I will likely use AI to help me with these posts. I am open to running these under a different author from me eg Slugger Bot.
Personal posts: My rants about whatever interests me, these will be mostly be written by me with some AI tidy up. As an aside, I do love this Bob Dylan quote: “All I can do is be me, whoever that is.”
Still, I understand there’s an ethical debate here — and I’m open to hearing what the community thinks.
Managing Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
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