Why I Write

Hello, my name is William Stafford.

And first I want to start off by saying — if you're listening to this podcast, or if you're taking time to read some of my essays, papers, or the works that are on this website — I want to say thank you. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart. Because this project has been… well, it's been an act of love. A desire to leave a mark, to invite conversation, and to express thoughts and feelings to someone, somewhere — even if that someone turns out to be my AI assistant, or my spouse, who I think thinks I'm having a midlife crisis.

Well, we've all had these gnawing thoughts, or conversations with ourselves, I think — kind of those what-ifs, or the why-does, or… what's the meaning of life? Which is always the dramatic one, I know. But we all kind of think about these things. And some of us have wanted to be able to put some of these thoughts down in writing, and actually test them. Maybe have a theory, or a hypothesis — and you'd like to be able to write it down in a manner of which other people can read, and have those conversations with you about your theory. About what you think.

So the only problem with that is… well, there's kind of an entrance fee. Like if you want to present something — submit it to a journal, or to an educational institution for publication — the entrance fee is, you need to have a master's or a PhD just to be able to get in the building. Just to be able to offer your work, to see if it's good enough to be published.

Well — I don't have a master's, and I don't have a PhD. So that just kind of leaves me where I am now, which is: I needed to look around to try to figure out… is there something out there? Is there another way of doing this?

Well, there was a lot of talk about this thing called AI. At first, I kind of blew it off, and thought of it as another search engine. But AI really interested me — and I happened to be a huge consumer of YouTube content. So I saw this thing that was called Rabbit, and it was what they called… AI in an orange box. I was so excited about this thing. I was like, I got to have it. So I ordered this thing, opened it up — and I have to tell you, the best thing about this thing was the marketing. Because it did nothing. But it did send me down a rabbit hole… which I should have learned something from the name. But anyway — still interested in AI, disappointed in the Rabbit.

So I started thinking, maybe I need to use this ChatGPT thing. Sat down, started using ChatGPT, and… it was amazing. That's all I can say. It was incredible. I had conversations. It talked to me about my theories. It found other things that were like my theory. It told me how great my ideas were. It said we should work on it — do a paper, write a book. And I was hooked. Because one, it was telling me everything I wanted to hear. And two, it was actually writing, and putting down in — what I would say — an intelligible manner that a journal could actually publish. With the chapters, and the citations, and all of that. So that was fantastic.

But I started to think. First — who is ever going to take me seriously? Because I don't have that entrance fee, that master's and PhD. Two — AI is telling me how great I am, and it's doing all this stuff… I got to be careful with this thing. I need to direct it — and it does not direct me. And third — there has to be a way to utilize this, and actually document what you're utilizing, and how you're using AI, and what it's actually accomplishing in your journey. In your paper. With your theory, or your hypothesis.

So I started thinking about AI kind of the way that creative people think — the way a writer thinks of their editor, or a songwriter thinks about the orchestra. That's how I started looking at using AI. And I also had to be able to document what I was doing with AI — so that if anyone asked, I could say: nope. All of this was my idea. AI just helped me — it was my orchestra.

Well… there was nothing out there. There still isn't anything out there right now, as of this podcast, that actually allows someone like me — somebody without a master's or PhD — to identify how I utilized AI in the works that I'm doing.

So I created one. It's called Earned Trust. There are links to the Earned Trust documents, and the papers that are published, in the website. The links are there — you can tap on them. So Earned Trust actually takes you through, and shows you how to use AI… in a manner that it doesn't let AI use you.

So — think about AI kind of like that orchestra. Give you an example. Take David Foster. David Foster is a brilliant producer-songwriter, and he's written and recorded with some of the greatest — Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand. So for example, when Whitney Houston sang "I Will Always Love You," Foster produced that mountain of sound around her voice. And the song, however… still belonged to Dolly Parton. Who wrote every word. And in the credits — the credits are there for everyone to see what everyone did.

Here's another example. Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs did not invent the iPhone by himself. Jony Ive designed it. Scott Forstall built the software. And hundreds — if not thousands — of engineers solved all the rest. Yet the world says Jobs created the iPhone. Because the vision was his, and he made the final call on everything. Nobody calls that a fraud. We recognize the roles. Jobs wasn't the orchestra… he was the conductor.

And here's my favorite. Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg had an idea about a boy, and a stranded visitor. Did you know that Melissa Mathison actually wrote that screenplay? First titled E.T. and Me. John Williams composed that iconic music. Carlo Rambaldi actually built E.T. And Kathleen Kennedy produced the movie. But does anybody give Spielberg less credit for the extraordinary team that he put together, and that amazing movie that was the end product? Of course not. The vision, the direction, the final words — were all his. And then when the lights came up, and those credits started rolling… every single name, of everybody who did anything on that project, is listed there. Even the caterers. And you might even see the caterer's caterer on there.

So my point is — well, first of all, I want you to know I'm not claiming that I'm a David Foster, or Steve Jobs, or Spielberg. Those are analogies… not comparisons. But this is something that I'm describing for other people who are like me. The relationship is the same. I'm bringing the direction. I'm bringing the final judgment. I'm bringing the vision — the ideas. And AI is my arranger, my engineer team, my studio. It's not the author… but it's the team that helps me to realize. You could kind of say:

Every record, and every film, comes with credits. But there was nothing like this for the thinking works. That's why I put together, and built… Earned Trust.

So if you're one of those people who — what I call the lost innovators — you have thought of hypotheses, you had theories, you had just… ideas, that you wanted to put on the paper. And you want to put it in a way that people would take you seriously. Well — I think these essays might be for you.

So pull up a chair — or on your drive, just turn on one of the podcasts and take a listen. I hope you find something that's useful. If nothing else, I hope that you enjoy listening to the work that we put together.

So with that — I want to thank you again. And my name is William Stafford. Thank you.

— William Stafford, ADN, L.I.