AI: Immersion or Submersion

Like most writers, I am fascinated with words – their etymology, multiple meanings, changing uses, and connotations. Lately, as I’ve been mulling over an analogy about writing, I’ve been pondering the difference between immersion and submersion.

I recently attended a Van Gogh Immersion Experience with music and paintings brought to life. In education, we commonly say that some foreign language classes are immersion experiences if all instructions and handouts and signage are in the foreign language. In this usage, students are surrounded by a different language, as an island is surrounded by water.

Submersion indicates an even deeper level of isolation, as one is beneath the surface, beyond the reach of others.

Although I love words, I am a visual thinker and often use analogies or word pictures to illustrate my meaning. The writing analogy I’ve been envisioning is an attempt to explain how deeply I’m diving into writing mode with this current work in progress and how frustrating disruptions to that process can be.

Imagine trying to retrieve coins from the bottom of a swimming pool. You can see them laying on the pool’s bottom some twelve feet below the surface. As you swim down, expelling breath to decrease buoyancy, you catch a glimpse of many coins, but can only retrieve one or two before having to resurface for another breath of air. Maybe your movements in the water shift the coins between dives, so they’re not where you expect them to be. Maybe your goggles fog up and you can no longer see them. Maybe your allotted time has expired, or maybe you’re just exhausted from your efforts of the past hour or two and give up to try again another day.

Will the coins (ideas) be there when you return? Is there an easier way?

I intentionally used the idea of a “deep dive” because that’s what AI promises. Lately, I’ve read a good many articles about the “good and bad” of AI. Did you notice the em-dash in my first sentence?

Supposedly that’s a sign of AI writing, as are repeated phrases and restatements or summarization.

Personally, I don’t use Chat GPT. I don’t have an interest in learning to use it. I’d rather struggle picking up those coins from the bottom of the pool.

But I cannot escape AI and neither can you. If you do a Google search these days, it defaults to an AI search. Two recent searches have been way off base: one related to Charles Dickens, but AI answered about the devil. The other confused Pikeville, TN with Pikeville, KY.

Fortunately, I’m paying attention and I’m more fully immersing myself in more authentic primary and secondary sources.

I think most of us can think of ways and places we fully immerse ourselves (hobbies, work, exercise, social media, an acting role, the study of history...)

Immersion can be very useful. Right now, I’m preparing to lead an adult continuing education Shakespeare class. I’m reminded of college days where we read ten plays in ten weeks, after which “what light through yonder window breaks” didn’t sound strange at all. Reading diaries and newspaper accounts of the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras is helping me use more authentic language in my writing.

It takes a little longer, but I’d rather immerse myself in traditional research than submerge in AI.

Despite my frustrations at near-constant interruptions, I’m more likely to keep my head above water.