Spencer Callaghan

Thought experiment. If Canada could compete in the #Euro24 how would they do?

I think they would definitely qualify and depending on their group they could make round of 16

I am fortunate to have had a few excellent mentors and leaders in my career who believed in me and gave me an opportunity to learn, try and fail.

How many young communications professionals are being denied that chance because of the AI hype train?

Putting aside the fact that platforms like ChatGPT are known to lie, fabricate and even hallucinate answers; what about the fact that these platforms are taking jobs from up and coming writers?

I have heard multiple stories of young professionals either being laid off or having trouble getting hired because marketing and communications leaders are trusting their brand voice to unproven technology.

These LLMs—what are essentially next-word probability machines—are not writers, they are guessers that are not only known to completely make shit up but have essentially consumed all text on the web, including yours and mine, with no attribution or compensation.

If you are a marketing or communications leader deploying AI-generated writing in your organization not only are you risking your company’s reputation and exposing trade secrets to these AI models, you are taking away the opportunities you were given early in your career to learn, grow and succeed.

You are pulling up the ladder after you climbed it.

Let’s be clear, if your organization was not successful employing human writers, the problem isn’t the writers, it’s your strategy. Cutting costs by handing over your organization’s voice, tone, brand and even reputation to unproven LLMs is reckless.

AI can and will eventually make great contributions to humanity, at least I hope so, but it will never replace the human spirit that is the beating heart of great writing (yes even great business writing)

AI has a number of uses that have to potential to advance human achievement—identifying subatomic particles, uncovering the next digit of pi, analyzing cancer cells for a cure—but replacing human creativity, communication and culture is not one of them.

Hire human writers.

There’s a house similar to mine nearby that is for sale.

In any sane country my house would not be worth that much.

Overinflated housing prices don’t benefit average people; they only benefit real estate investors.

If I sold my house tomorrow, I’d still have to buy a house at the same inflated prices.

If you think you’re “house rich” I have news for you: is a paper win, nothing more.

Make my house worth less; give young people a chance at a home.

You, average person trying their best: “I feel guilty if I don’t recycle, buy an EV, stop eating meat and turn down the thermostat.”

Them, politicians and elites: “Let’s fly to the COP28 climate conference in Dubai run by the Saudi oil exec.”

Leonardo DiCaprio: “I’m going to write a movie about how no one is taking climate change seriously on my private jet flight to the Dubai climate conference.”

I’m in Germany on business and they have a Ukrainian TV channel at the hotel. It’s absolutely fascinating and terrifying at the same time

Air Canada exec 1: Lets create our own proprietary audio plug so everyone has to use headphones that are inevitably shittier than the ones they brought with them on the plane!

Air Canada exec 2: Bonus points, they create more e-waste!

*high fives

I think the barista is flirting with me.

(It’s me, hi, I’m the barista it’s me)

I’m starting to think Mac Jones isn’t the answer

Now that we’re in the post-twitter world where I now have three apps to cover what one once did, I think I’m going to double down on micro.blog and it’s great cross posting feature.

I also think I’m going to start more longform posts. More thought, less reaction

The main reason I’m such a big fan of Halloween. Nine years ago today this little pumpkin made me a dad.

Happy birthday Charlotte.

She finished 24th in her age category in her cross country meet (out of 235) #proud

Imagine being a parent who bought their daughter tickets to their first concert. Imagine what you’d do now. How you’d feel. Imagine that level of evil. There is no geopolitical excuse for this.

If you think fans of different teams coalesce around a rival simply due to national affiliation you should probably stop covering sports completely, you clearly don’t understand it.

Is there a sport with more rigid adherence to old tropes and narratives than hockey?

My MacBook Air is hanging on by a 4Gb of RAM thread right now but there’s nothing in the current lineup I feel comfortable buying. This seems not good.

Here’s the thing about the playoffs. Every game creates sheer panic on one side and unbridled euphoria on the other. Try not to take either too seriously.

It’s amazing how weather impacts life. There are a whole series of things that should be happening now that just aren’t because my brain is convincing my body that it’s still too cold. #excuses