AI and I are becoming best buddies. After all, I sit on fifty acres of land in Central Texas and can’t see my neighbors. When I go to my office, there’s no one to interact with except Perplexity.

WHAT DO I USE AI FOR?

While I did most of the research for Book 1 of my Family Threads trilogy, following my mother’s side of the family, The Refugees, through regular Google searches, I’ve turned to Perplexity to speed up the process for Book 2, The Rovers. When it gives you an answer, it also gives you the source so I can review those documents myself.

I ask all sorts of questions that drive me crazy while writing. I do my best not to be called out by a reader because I screwed up the research.

• Would a lower-class Tennessee farmer in 1819 traveling on a river boat have a hand saw?
• During the fire of 1849 in St. Louis, were people kept out of the fire zone until it was considered safe to re-enter?

My favorite thing to do is to think up a plot scenario and then ask AI whether it is plausible.

• Would an 18-year-old daughter from a prosperous German family who owns a cobbler shop run off with a white man?
• Is it possible for a soldier who comes home from the 1814 Creek War to go through Guntersville, Alabama, on his way to Sevier County, Tennessee, and then come back in 1816 and 1819?

If AI gives me the go-ahead, I generally run with it. BTW, the marriage to a white man would have been a scandal, and the route home through Guntersville has me on solid ground. So you’ll see both plotlines in the novel.

IS AI ALWAYS RIGHT?

Not always. I find this fascinating. The other day, I caught AI giving me contradictory answers. While researching Catholicism in 1850 in Huntsville, Alabama, I asked the following question:

 Q:        1850 did Huntsville have a catholic church?

A:          Yes. Huntsville had a Catholic congregation and a small brick Catholic church by 1850. The first service in the original church building of what became St. Mary of the Visitation was held in August 1847, so it was active for your July 1850 setting.

 Several days later, I asked the following question:

 Q:        north alabama 1850 were catholics accepted?

 A:        Not broadly—though an individual Catholic could live and do business in north Alabama in1850, they would have been a conspicuous religious minority in an overwhelmingly Protestant, largely evangelical culture.

•  Catholics were scarce, not necessarily routinely expelled or violently persecuted. The 1850 census counted only 7,509 foreign-born residents statewide, mostly in Mobile, and Alabama had only five Catholic churches; the state’s Catholic population and institutions were concentrated much farther south on the Gulf Coast.I

• In Huntsville, even by the late 1850s there were probably only about eleven Catholic families, served irregularly by traveling priests—sometimes with gaps of up to three years. A resident Catholic in 1850 therefore likely had no local Mass, priest, or parish community.

 OK, now I perked up. These two answers didn’t jive. So, I challenged my friend.

 Accusation:     earlier you told me that St. Mary of the Visitation had an active church in Huntsville. Please explain these two answers.

(Note: Notice that I am being polite to my friend and saying please. Who knows? One day Perplexity may rule the world, and remember that I was a rude, cocky human who thinks I can push artificial intelligence around.)

Reply:              You’re right to question it. The two answers conflated a Catholic mission presence in Huntsville with an organized, continuously staffed parish/church—and I should have made that distinction clear.

OMG! This is just like interacting with a real person!

LAST THOUGHTS ON AI

 I don’t use it to think up my plot or write my manuscript, only to provide information so I can convey the context in which my ancestors lived and to ensure what I make up is plausible.   

To me, AI is like fire. It can be used for good or evil. You have to handle it carefully and with respect. It needs to be regulated like fire, with guidelines, precautions, and penalties for those who misuse it.

Oh, and it’s great for making a list of keywords for your blog.

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