Mazen Cassim

Blog

  • How I use AI for my blog

    I’m testing myself in the blogging world

    The last post I uploaded was in April. Nearly seven months have passed since I posted an article. I didn’t want to generate articles using AI, using a chatbot just to speed up my posting. I believe authentic content will have more relevance in an artificial intelligent era, especially when more AI-generated content floods the internet. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t use tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini. It means that we should use them cautiously, responsibly and without flooding the internet with videos, with repetitive formulas to generate content. But I’m holding myself back not because I’m reluctant to use AI; it is my laziness holding me back if you ask me.

    My opinion in how to use AI

    It doesn’t mean that I’m going to rely only on myself to come up with good ideas for my content like in the good old days. I’ll use the research ability of the chatbot to refine my original ideas without simply prompting the chatbot. and humanized the ideas it generates, which I never have, then copied and pasted them everywhere expecting to generate some dollars. Sometimes it’ll work for the time being since it’s just the beginning of the AI content era, but when these platforms notice the pattern of the AI-generated content that is flooding, definitely these tech giants will limit the content with less human touch and will limit the visibility level. They have a mechanism to identify and limit them right now, but as I believe, these companies will intensify the process to limit or block content which has a limited level of human touch or human value.

    A scam in the new era

    When scrolling on a platform like Facebook recently, I’ve noticed that there are a lot of advertisements wanting to sell their courses, which teach how to use AI. That is how they make money using AI. That’s a clever strategy to sell courses, which are hyped right now. But if you know English, or how to form a basic English sentence along with patience, you can learn anything without spending money on these AI courses. Maybe some people will find useful enrolling for a course with a subscription. I don’t want to be poor because of my ignorance. You need only one subscription. That’s all! You can extract the most from AI. In my case, I’ve got a Gemini subscription. That is more that enough for me. And I feel I never use the full potential of Gemini, rather peeking into other platforms thinking they would offer me tools which I’ll never use. Everyone wants to grab your dime by promising something if you sign up. In some professions, it is necessary to use AI extensively to increase productivity and maximize profit.

    Does anyone care about human touch?

    Personally, I don’t want to read, listen or watch something that wasn’t generated by a conscious mind because it lacks the emotional touch. When it misses the emotional touch, we naturally get disconnected from the content we read, listen or watch.

    Artificial intelligence is the new norm. We have to get used to it, not fall behind and lose opportunities that arise with it. But at the same time, we should make sure not to abandon our own creativity.

  • Ignorance is bliss

    Since I was a kid, I’ve been really sensitive to changes in the political world. I’ve got a good handle on what’s going on. I’m not telling that I’m a soothsayer, but I can predict things to some extent. That is an ability I’ve developed by constantly exposing to opinions, information, data, articles, facts, etc. I like to read papers, magazines, blogs, refer to websites like CNN, RT, Aljazeera for the latest news, and watch YouTube videos. I’m not doing this because I’m making a living out of it, but solely to fulfil my curiosity. But considering the negative share of the news or the suffering inflicted by human themselves throughout the news, upholding to the saying “ignorance is bliss“, is always a good option which will benefit your mental well-being.

    As a person who lives in a city which is approximately 20km from the commercial city Colombo in Sri Lanka, worrying about things which you don’t have any control whatsoever is one of the stupid things you can do for yourself. As an example, if you are very sensitive to the development which has been unravelling since specially October 7th, 2023, whenever you’re exposed to casualties because of bombing, will make you depressed.

    If they can’t, how can we?

    But is it necessary to get worry for the incidents or infuriation or hatred towards the inflictors when you see a death of a child in that region? It is not something you should do to yourself. Given the apparent inability of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, other neighbouring nations, and the UN to influence or stop Israel’s actions in Gaza, should I be worried as an individual? I’m sad, but worrying about things which I do not have an influence on is some other level.

    If you’re an investor or global correspondence, you can perceive these situations objectively to make a living out of it. But if you’re consuming this information for the sake of news, it is not worth it. I don’t believe in raising your voice in social media or involving in boycott campaigns or commenting will help to find a solution for a chaotic situation. It can do some influence to some extent, but you have to be careful to take care your mental well-being first.

  • Beyond the Boycotts – Did Disney’s Remake Enchant? My first impression.

    What really happens to the movie Snow White?

    Personally, this remake of Snow White isn’t very exciting. The remake that I’ve got excited was for “The Beauty and the Beast “, starred by Emma Watson. The ripple effect of the excitement affected not only me, but also felt all across the world. There are some indicators you can refer like rating sites/apps, Box Office records and reviews all across the internet. As I believe, a movie to perform, it isn’t just enough to have a good script, performance by the actors, stunning visual effects, directing or cinematography. You name it. The marketers or distributors also should address other political concerns surrounding the movie. (I’ll write about this in another post) I think Snow White has failed to address most of the concerns surrounding it. That is why maybe the movie especially struggled to perform in the Box Office. Not only controversies around it, like using heavy CGI to depict the dwarves, or the choice of actress as Snow White affected the performance in the Box Office but also the story line, dialogue, some sloppy scenes affected the movie to gain attention of the masses.

    Pro-Israel vs Pro-Palestine: Lot of reasons to boycott

    First, I didn’t want to watch the movie because I supported the boycott campaign against Snow White. Because Gal Gadot’s stance on Palestine-Israel conflict. Everywhere I see, I saw only Gal Gadot’s negative effects prior to the movie’s release. Maybe it was a part of the campaign to attract more pro-Israel fans to watch the movie. If it was a marketing stunt, it utterly failed. Then I got to know the thing that Rachel Zegler brings into the table, pro-Palestinian stance. It didn’t perfectly balance, but if it was to attract the pro-Palestinian fans to watch the movie, it also failed. As I always believe, with big money projects, there are no co-incidents. Everything surrounding the drama is very well planned. Most of the news you hear, watch or consume in some other way in social media are things they wanted us to hear. Building a negative campaign/controversies around the movie prior to the movie’s release to gain attraction from the public got popular since the successful campaign of Oppenheimer and Barbie, Barbenheimer. Barbenhiemer was not actually a negative stunt, but it actually worked.

    As per the backlash for the movie Little Mermaid, after they cast Halle Bailey as the lead role, Disney didn’t back up from their decision not to cast stereotypical story book looking girls for iconic Disney movies. I’ve seen people were criticizing the decision to choose Rachel Zigler as iconic Disney character Snow White by comparing the beauty of Gal Gadot and Rachel Zigler saying Ms. Zigler is not as beauty as Gal Gadot. Maybe they have done that intentionally to highlight the concept – “Beauty emerges within“. The public or fairy tales fan base had a presumption of what to expect from a character like Snow White for a reason which I can’t understand. Disney always wanted to break all the social norms possible.

    How I got to watch “Snow White”

    I didn’t want to watch Snow White in the theatre because I was sensitive to political issues and consuming contents in social media surrounding the movie. But suddenly when I was wandering in Havelock City Mall (A shopping in Colombo with a Cinema Multiplex called Scope Cinema) with my three daughters, I had this moment of thinking, that, whatever the political concerns surrounding the movie doesn’t matter for my daughters, they would definitely enjoy a story they already know. Because they aren’t got polluted by all these social media nonsense. So I booked 5 tickets for the whole family and watched the movie. As I expected, my daughters at 7, 9 and 11 respectively enjoyed the movie from start to the end. I would rate the movie 4 out of 10. But it didn’t matter to my daughters, they wouldn’t give a dime regarding the rating. It was visually stunning. They had an enjoyable time with the movie experience while crunching popcorn. That’s what it matters. It was on a Sunday evening; the theatre was 75% occupied. Which I think is a good thing. Do not let social media opinion influence your decisions.

  • Overcoming overthinking

    This was the first time I had tried to write another post on the same day. (I wrote but published in the next day) Even though I said currently I care about the quantity or the number of posts, I do care about the quality as well. Therefore, for no reason, I won’t break down the posts unnecessarily to increase their number. It took me several months or a couple of years to write the first post, which I had written a couple of days ago. Therefore, with this as the third post right now I’m gaining confidence in writing regularly, which I believe can make this one of the successful blogs in the future. When you do something for some time after procrastination, it feels great. The frustration eases. I wanted to be heard, everyone does I guess. However, in the case of mine, if I didn’t do it or start writing right now, I’m sure the frustration would develop due to procrastination may amplify for a mental disorder later on.

    I like what Kevin Hart said when he was in Joe Rogan’s podcast episode. He said, first, when you start doing something, do not think about the quality, it is important to keep going, but each and every day make sure to do granular improvements, adjustments with the experience, and education you have obtained through the process. I really like the advice he has given on doing things.

    I believe that following his advice will give me a sense of satisfaction, which will fuel me to do more. Also, I’m an overthinker; I admit that overthinking leads to procrastination. Therefore, doing this, which I’m doing right now with this blog, will be able to overcome “overthinking.”

  • The post after the first

    My immediate target for this blog was to surpass five posts. This was a struggle that I really wanted to overcome.  I have set a mid-range target of 100 posts. This means that I can do work consistently if I can achieve that mid-range target. Currently, I do not care about the number of readers visiting my blog, and I will not bother to check my website analytics right now. Right now, I care only about the number of posts or the quantity or the number of ideas I am coming up for these posts. I have failed to achieve consistency in most of the tasks I have started throughout my life. This was why I said that this blog was one of the projects, a struggle I really wanted to overcome. I know if I give up this struggle right now, I am going to regret it later in my life.  Wish me good luck!

  • My First Blog

    I had been procrastinating this post for so long, but finally I was able to write up to this point. Maybe I was procrastinating because writing a post is not easy. People tend to procrastinate when things get difficult and lack the motivation to carry out the tasks, or maybe there are a lot of reasons for why people delay tasks. I’m an educator of English language, and I’m quite busy with children by planning the lessons and other related activities in the classroom. I know this post that I’m writing right now will not be read by many; most likely no reader would come face to face with this post at all. But it’s okay. I can consider this as a self-reflection and a task I’m carrying out to improve my writing skills. 

    Most probably I won’t procrastinate if I follow the people who identify them as social media gurus who are advising to generate the blog posts using generative A.I. such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Gemini by Google, Perplexity A.I., etc. I don’t think that would be a sensible thing to do, generating posts totally using generative A.I. without any human experience or zero effort. Who would read such a post? Who would follow such a blog? I wouldn’t. I would rather interact with a post written by a human or human experiences shared by some other human. You would ask how someone can identify a post written by generative A.I. or by a human; the simple answer is I don’t know, or you can ask ChatGPT or some other engine how to differentiate whether it has been written by a human or using a chat engine, or copy and paste a particular text into an A.I. detection website. Even it’ll come up with the ratio of human vs. generative portion of the text uploaded. But reading a text or a post, even my instinct can determine whether it has a human touch or not. Therefore, I prefer the hard way. It may be relevant to use an A.I. chat engine to maintain a blog or generate posts for that particular blog, such as a technical review blog or product review, but not for a personal blog, which I’m going to achieve here. 

    Sharing my experiences with the world through a blog has been one of my long-standing passions that I always wanted to pursue. It has always been there, whatever I do. I started several blogs on several platforms, but it has never surpassed the 5th blog. Maybe my passion is not strong after all. My first instance was around in 2007, where I tried a movie review blog where I paid for a domain and hosting for several months but never could continue it. 

    Even though I entered the game with the same mentality, I wanted to believe that this time would be different. See you around.