This past week I have been rushing to complete my fall canning. We are lucky to have a beautiful farm market near us (Desert Hills in Ashcroft, BC) that offers bulk produce at a very low cost. I wasn’t planning on doing any canning, but my husband finished our cold room in our house early and I suddenly got inspired to fill it up, seeing its empty shelves.

At the market I bought a 25 lb. box of Honeycrisp apples, as I was feeling ambitious in the moment. However, when I got home, I looked at the box in dread. Was I really going to prep all of these? A full packing box? Luckily, a trip to the local kitchen supplies store yielded a heavy duty cast iron apple peeler, slicer, and corer. The handy little device had the full box of apples done in about 20 minutes. If I had not found the tool, I would’ve probably been peeling for well over an hour. And I hate peeling.

This got me thinking about how other tools in our lives can help expedite work tasks. Yes, the machine helped me out greatly, but before I could put the apple slices into the hot and ready canning jars, I needed to do a final cleanup. Some apples still had skin left over on them. Some weren’t completely cored accurately. Others had some bruising that needed to be removed.

This reminded me of AI. I work in both advertising and writing. In the advertising world, most companies are trying to think up new and innovative ways to use AI. In the creative writing world, there is a lot of unfavourable discourse around AI. I understand both sides. If we can make AI do our boring tasks, this leaves more room for creative thinking and strategy.

Personally, I’m not against the use of AI for certain things. Much like the apple peeler machine, it can help do the menial work fast, allowing us to focus on more important things. I’ve used AI only for copywriting. I don’t see a use for it with creative/fictional writing, other than it’s fun to get writing prompts sometimes. I also see a use for AI with other advertising tasks, such as asking it in-depth questions about how to structure workload, something Google wouldn’t really answer properly.

Since I primarily work with Google and Microsoft Ads, AI is showing more and more on both platforms. The platforms now automatically load AI suggested headlines and body copy when I’m creating a new campaign. At first I found this extremely agitating (and still do when I’m in a rush) but I’ve started to slow down and review the suggestions. Some are way off and not remotely related to the campaign, but some are good thought starters.

And that’s how I see AI. It can be great for getting new ideas, almost like having a brainstorm with a colleague, but those ideas need molding and a human touch. They need bad sections peeled off. They need their core reviewed for any missed seeds. Just like my cast iron apple peeler that was first invented in 1864, when canning aficionados likely scoffed at the idea of it, AI will find its fit into modern society. It just needs to be used to help us humans find efficiencies and taken with a grain of salt, so that unwanted peels don’t end up in the jar.

Apple Pie Filling and Applesauce