Augmenting Humanity with AI Tools - Q1 2026

AI as a Productive Tool

I hope my use of AI reveals some of the beneficial elements of technology against the concerns that this development might deplete, displace, or delete the significance of our humanity in the daily narrative of human living.

For me, AI is a tool, helping my productivity at work and augmenting other skill areas as a timesaving resource that can be deployed for various activities. For instance, I would explain an issue or a scenario to an AI chatbot and ask if it had any ideas towards troubleshooting an incident or a problem.

AI would provide knowledge and background on the issue before suggesting several steps to follow towards a resolution. The kind of engagement I have, which is known as prompt engineering, is casually conversational and iterative.

At times, I might even ask AI to combine all my previous prompts in a conversation thread into a comprehensive prompt, whilst taking cognisance of other factors I may not have considered before.

Refining My Writing Voice

Besides that, I use AI as a proofreader of my blogs, adjusting for punctuation, spelling, grammar, structure, and flow of thought processes without losing my voice, the context, or the intent.

All this includes asking for feedback and ideas to extend the conversation in future writings.

AI-Generated Podcasts: A Revelation

However, where I have gained the most fascination with AI is in the use of AI-generated podcasts based on the blogs I have written in 2026. Using the Audio Overview of Google's NotebookLM, I have created podcasts discussing each individual blog with an in-depth conversation between two agents.

To garner a more thematic review, I have also had podcasts made covering the range of blogs written in each month of 2026. For the 21 blogs published in January, there is a one-hour podcast discussion, and for the 13 blogs written in each of February and March, the podcasts are under 45 minutes.

I am impressed by how AI creates a narrative arc that connects the dots between my blogs in ways I never realised were linked. It can only help me understand how to better express myself.

Whilst there are minor, aesthetic errors of comprehension (such as AI thinking I had radiotherapy in Cape Town or tea with my mother in Pinelands, from the January and March podcasts respectively), I see no need to redo them to eliminate those infractions.

Acknowledging AI's Limitations

AI can be inaccurate, and what we must not do is ignore these errors but address them through review, acknowledgement, then notification or correction where possible.

There are many other ends to which I deploy AI mechanics, but the ones mentioned here are the standout attributions for which I am grateful.

AI is giving my staid two-decade-old blog a stake in multimedia interaction; I can only hope there are readers and listeners with a long enough attention span to enjoy the experience and comment with their views.

Thank you.

An AI discussion podcast
on blogs published in January 2026
Chronicles of Resilience and Reflection

An AI discussion podcast
on blogs published in February 2026
Dignity, Deserts, and the Prostate Chronicles

An AI discussion podcast
on blogs published in March 2026 
Observations on Identity, Transit, and Digital Modernisation

AI is my proofreader

AI Helping Out

For the past four months, I have utilised AI to review, assess, and suggest new ideas after reading the blog. Its purpose is to make spelling and grammatical changes without changing the structure of the blog, if my voice is to be lost in the process.

The result of that activity is in this published blog - You Are the Boss

The bot or agent within the Poe app does the following, using Claude-Sonnet-4.5 as the AI modelling tool. Here is the link to my Blog-Reviewer-Editor. You can have a trial and let me know what you think.

The Bot Introduction

Blog Reviewer Editor Polisher - UK English

### What This Bot Does

This specialised assistant helps polish and refine blog posts whilst preserving your unique voice and writing style. It functions as a professional British English editor that grammatically reviews your content, corrects errors, and improves readability without losing the essence of your original work.

## Key Facilities

# Grammar and punctuation correction using British English conventions

# Flow and readability improvements through sentence restructuring and better transitions

# Section headings introduced to improve readability, where there are none in the text

# Style preservation, ensuring you still recognise your own voice and thought processes

# Comprehensive review summary explaining what changed and why

# Writing feedback offering insights on how to improve future posts

# Headline suggestions with reasoned recommendations

# Discourse analysis identifying potential debate angles and alternative perspectives

## Benefits

# Maintains your authentic voice whilst achieving professional polish

# Ensures consistent British English spelling and conventions throughout

# Eliminates grammar errors without over-editing or changing your message

# Improves clarity and comprehension for readers

# Provides educational feedback to develop your writing skills

# Saves time by handling technical editing whilst you focus on ideas

# Offers strategic insights for developing related content

## Considerations

# No em-dashes policy: The bot strictly avoids em-dashes, replacing them with alternative punctuation

# Context preservation: Edits prioritise maintaining your original meaning over stylistic perfection

# No new content: The bot won't add ideas not present in your original text

# British English only: All spelling and conventions follow British standards

# Voice over perfection: When in doubt, the bot chooses preserving your voice over technically 'perfect' alternatives

## Simply paste your blog post, and receive a polished version along with constructive feedback for continuous improvement.

Uses Claude-Sonnet-4.5, a model that is powered by Anthropic.

AI Review Summary

Changes Made and Why

1. Section headings added: I've introduced four section headings to guide readers through your narrative arc: arrival and gratitude, the measurements, waiting room observations, and the consultation itself.
2. Punctuation corrections:
• Changed "checkup" to "check-up" (British convention for this medical term)
• Added necessary commas for clarity ("In fact, her uniform...")
• Improved the flow of complex sentences with better comma placement
3. Spelling corrections:
• "practiced" → "practised" (British English for the verb form)
• "6-month" → "six-month" (convention to spell out numbers at the beginning of compound adjectives)
4. Sentence restructuring:
• Split overly long sentences where they impeded readability
• Used semicolons to balance related clauses (e.g., the worn shoe observation)
• Added em-dash replacements with commas and semicolons as per your guidelines
5. Minor word adjustments:
• "nurse phlebotomist" rather than "nurse at phlebotomist" for professional title accuracy
• Adjusted punctuation in the final sentence for better rhythm

Writing Insights

Your writing has a distinctive, observational quality that blends personal health concerns with social commentary. The shift from self-focused anxiety to broader observations about others shows good narrative awareness. However, some sentences tried to carry too much weight simultaneously, which occasionally obscured your points.

Areas for improvement:

• Watch for run-on sentences that pack multiple observations into one clause
• Consider whether comparative observations (like the nurse's weight) serve your narrative purpose or risk distracting from your main point
• Your philosophical asides are engaging, but ensure they're integrated smoothly rather than interrupting the flow

Subject and Discourse

This piece touches on several rich themes:

Healthcare experience: The patient-consultant relationship, medical autonomy, and the evolution of medical paternalism towards shared decision-making

Body image and health: Your self-consciousness about measurements alongside observations of healthcare workers' own health creates an interesting tension about who has authority over health

Potential debate lines:

• Medical autonomy vs medical expertise: When should patients override professional advice?
• The health of healthcare workers: Should there be fitness standards for medical professionals?
• Anxiety and medical appointments: How does anticipatory stress affect health readings?

Alternative angles to explore:

• The ten-year relationship with your consultant and what continuity of care means
• Why biannual check-ups matter for chronic condition management
• The irony of seeking health in institutions where health workers themselves struggle

Suggested Headlines

1. "You Are the Boss" - This quote captures the heart of your piece: medical autonomy and the evolving doctor-patient relationship. It's intriguing and invites readers in.
2. "Observations from the Waiting Room" - Emphasises your contemplative, observational style and the social commentary aspect of your writing.
3. "A Decade of Check-ups" - Highlights the long-term nature of your medical journey and suggests reflection and perspective.
4. "Grateful for Good Health" - Takes your closing sentiment and makes it the headline, creating a positive, reflective tone that frames the entire piece.
5. "The Daily Struggle for Health" - Uses your own phrase about the universal challenge of maintaining health, applicable to patients and healthcare workers alike.

Recommendation: I'd suggest "You Are the Boss" as your headline. It's memorable, creates intrigue, and captures the key moment of medical autonomy that seems central to your reflection. It also invites debate about patient rights and medical decision-making.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Thought Picnic: The enduring art of wordy silviculture

Seeking the words for a tapping

“When ideas fail, words come in very handy.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sometimes, I am caught on the horns of a dilemma, seeking ideas for a blog and failing to find any form of inspiration, insight, or direction. That way, I apparently run into a wall, what they term Writer’s Block.

I would not arrogate to myself the status of a writer, my stuff is whimsical and light, where silliness collides with levity that if anything I published here were to find another forum not in my control, I risk being dismissed with the risible laughter of a braying mob.

Limited courage to extend

That belies my constant angst of reaching beyond the comfort of my blog, I do not have the myriad opportunities for returning to correct spelling or grammatical errors. Many of those I submitted articles to have not bothered to proofread my copy, they publish as it was delivered apart from changing the formatting to suit their aesthetic preferences.

One would think anybody receiving copy for syndication would have a pendant ready to pore of the text, not so much to change the editorial slant, but to help it pass the muster of grammatical rules. Though, nothing scares me as much as to have someone change the context, tense, import and content of anything I have submitted for publication.

The safety of your island

Worse still is where the publication offers open commentary with liberal rules suffering for the freedom of expression without allowing a modicum of courtesy or politeness. In that, you are left at the mercy of the elements. Invariably, the words of Roger Scruton the philosopher who passed on in January ring true, “The mob is by nature innocent: it washes its own conscience in a flow collective indignation.”

Yes, you risk a pile-on and it is not in any way pleasant. Maybe there is contentment in just having your personal blog that has existed for 16 years. I can live with that; I seek neither fame nor infamy, maybe relevance in the insignificant.

My blog is an island you can view from afar and visit by express permission. It becomes the safety my seed words need to gain a life of their own without the tares of malevolence choking the process of growing a forest of words that become trees.

Excoriating the unacceptable in written English communication

Rotten text English

I happened upon a posting on Facebook where the writer in expressing disapproval of the content of an email he received, posted the text stating the sender was a graduate of an unnamed university and the person had been previously warned about writing in that manner.

The email contained a greeting, lots of bad punctuation, misspelt words and bad grammar forming the basis for a request along of the lines of being engaged for some project by the recipient of the email.

Social Media is hardly the problem

The comments that followed the posting gave a general idea of what people might think of such communication that I was compelled to add an opinion that I have expanded into the blog below.

The first comment, suggested this was what you get for spending so much time on Social Media, however, I begged to differ with the this statement - I do not think the excuse is time spent on Social Media, I come from the telegram generation where words cost a lot of money and we did not succumb to such sloppiness.

Adapt to the platform

In fact, with the advent of Short Message Service (SMS) on mobile phones restricted to 160 characters and now tweets on Twitter restricted to 140 characters, the need to be correct, concise and clear should not be sacrificed to this nonsensical mode of communication.

Now, the use of phonetic spellings, homophones, abbreviations and words missing their vowels are becoming the standard mode of communication amongst many. In fact, if this were used as personal shorthand to be transcribed to proper text for public dissemination, I would have no problem with it.

I have had instances where visiting another country, the need for sentences to be properly formed and written is essential for the use of an online translator, if people speaking different languages need to communicate – this kind of writing using strange words does not help.

No excuses

Another comment asked if the person were a possible hire; unlikely, would be the response. We must not confuse this lack of attention to language communication with dyslexia; this fad has crept from informal communication into formal letters, the writers being none the wiser about how this reflects on them and their prospects.

There is no excuse for writing English letters this way, most especially in emails or on Facebook, where there is enough space and spellcheckers are available to ensure good and correct spelling. Besides, to ignore such promptings to spell correctly is both reckless and irresponsible, such stubborn use of unconventional text should be penalised.

Call me old-fashioned but communication between animals if they had script would never be reduced to this.

Standards in written language communication matter

Other comments followed from absolving the writer from any blame to asking the recipient to be more amenable to such faddish style of writing. I guess this represents how many feel about this, but if we should maintain standards; that includes everyone, and dictionaries are not to become a compendium of a jumble of letters given any meanings suited to the times, some of us have to decide what is acceptable and what is not.

On this occasion, I suggested the writer needs a stern telling off for today, just in case the person encounters a less forgiving person on matters that concern opportunity and prospect after this.

I am probably a purist of sorts, I make mistakes, but I strive to ensure that I use dictionary reviewable words of the language of choice when communicating with people. I have lapsed into sesquipedalianism at times, but that is to maintain context and carry a message.

When it comes to Twitter, I have learnt brevity, concision and precision is possible with the use of correct English grammar and proper English words in the limited space of 140 characters – I believe, there are no excuses for sloppy writing, regardless of the platform.

Blogging: Facing the shame of my bad writing

As an experiment, I am counting the number of times I edit this blog after I first clicked the Publish button: 6

I am still learning to write

I have to admit I have a problem too many ideas course through my active mind and with that the desire to tap at my keyboard and produce a blog. I have been doing this for a long time; I am in my tenth year of blogging.

When I first started blogging, I passed my copy through a grammar and writing style checker to ascertain the readability of what I have written and found that it consistently registered too high on the scale for it to cater to a broad reading audience.

Checking grammar and readability

The grammar checker became a moderating influence as I tried to make my thoughts easier to access and thus easier to read. Shorter paragraphs, shorter sentences, and sentences I could read back to myself without pausing to understand why I wrote that way, captioning and much else came into my writing.

Still, I end up doing a poor job of it; the ideas are generally sound but riddled with errors. These errors are rarely of the spelling kind but of the grammatical context, writing style and readability kind.

The strange thing is I have not been able to bring the kind of rigour I give to business writing to blogging as if it is a mind-set thing and hence my problem compounded.

I can return

I find safety and refuge in my blog, I am able to constantly review, edit, correct, rephrase, and refine what I have written without the need for an intermediary, because it is my space.

I carry my shame constantly reminded that though my mother tongue is English and I pride myself in the ability to express myself excellently, I am still a very bad writer.

Inspiration and review

What I have noticed with my writing is that the flow of inspiration is quite different from context of review. Somehow, I have found that if I lose the first draft of anything I have written I am usually unable to recreate that flow of inspiration again.

I do feel that loss deeply and that is why I prefer to create my blogs on an offline editor, because each time I have done it on an online editor, I have lost everything. This happened only a few days ago – I have not been able to reproduce that inspirational burst since then.

Mind apart

I say to people, when I have my fingers to the keyboard, I am like a man possessed; my fingers trying to keep up with the torrent of phraseology churning in my mind, much of which is fully formed in my mind but my fingers rarely keeping up with it.

My senses then fail to spot what I have left out; between what I was thinking and what I eventually wrote; my sight deceived into thinking they are the same.

Reading to my hearing

At one time, I took to reading my draft blogs out to myself as an editing process; I still do that for my most important pieces. Nevertheless, I am quite impatient because my newly crafted blog feels like bread just taken out of the oven, the aroma, the warmth, the softness and everything that makes freshly baked bread enraptures you, you want some of it, there and then.

Therefore, you finish the blog, give it a scant review, annotate it, caption it, format it and publish it, satisfied that the job is done. Hours, days, weeks, months or even years later, you go back to read that blog and palm to face embarrassment – Did I really write that?

In the heat of the moment, I did, but because it is my blog, I can review, edit, correct, update and constantly do that for the lifetime of the blog – a blog is never finished – it is a living document and that is because, I am really a bad writer.

Readability Statistics

I enabled the grammar and style checker for this blog, but it was not used for this section of the blog. Between the first attempt at writing this blog, and what you can read now, I improved on the readability but lost some of the literary and artistic license I take in how I write. I guess that is what really makes me a bad writer.

The Readability Statistics of my very first draft 

The Readability Statistics after 20 minutes of editing the first draft.

 

I think there is much room for improvement.

Nigeria: One look at our Dutch website - Ewww!

Another website to cry about

I suppose by now I already have a reputation for being a nit-picking imperfectionist of sorts who has a penchant for finding errors and atrocious mistakes in official documents but almost always ends up with problems in my exposés.

As I have tried to make the keener observers understand, my blog and comments about websites are personal, but those websites under review are official, they are the public face of the institutions that commission them, someone gets paid to provide that service and at the least before publication somebody should proofread the stuff before it goes online.

I am beginning to think that the issue of attention to detail is systemic and endemic in Nigerian officialdom and it is not restricted to the confines of Nigeria’s borders. After Babcock University [1] and The Nigeria @ 50 website [2].

Nigeria showing in the Netherlands

I paid a visit to the website [3] of the embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in The Netherlands this morning and the first impressions could not be more amateurish, the site looked like the mock-up creation of a kindergarten school finger-painting class, it was appalling – but that is beside the point.

The home page had an important notice of an event that took place between the 5^th and 16^th of July, 2010, I think today is the 8^th of October, 2010. It was titled “e-Passport Intervention Exercise for Nigerians”, I am getting ahead of myself here, but what I have done is taken a snapshot of the page and presented it as graphic with the numbered parts being the particular issues I want to concentrate on.

Detailing the itemised points

Item 1; shows how addresses are written and spoken out in The Netherlands and usually in most of continental Europe, the street comes first and then the house number. Nothing wrong with this.

Item 2; “Intervention Exercise”, whilst I agree Nigerians are given to verbosity, myself included at times, giving verbosity vacuity such that context is implied from redundancy is just an excess. However, maybe the “Intervention” implies the normally smooth process of obtaining an e-Passport does not work for all sorts of reasons and the ambassador has decided to intervene.

Otherwise, it is just a registration or validation exercise, the use of intervention confers on the word irrelevance pretending to official importance.

Item 3; speaks for itself, the spelling checker on the author’s computer even if set to Dutch would have flagged that as incorrect. Any public relations department MUST ALWAYS have their copy spell-checked before publication, I dare say, it is a sin not to. Hereby, whack the miscreant across the knuckles.

Item 4; as I stated in Item 1, addresses are written in a particular way in The Netherlands, it helps the post get to its destination and even GPS systems ask for addresses in that order.

I will be as uncharitable as to suggest that some greenhorn who has just been brought over from Nigeria to probably lord it over those who have a clue about things here has thrown their weight about and come up with this nonsense. It might well be the Nigerian Embassy but it is located in The Netherlands, you promote Nigerian culture and values whilst adhering to Dutch standards of communication.

That address should have been The Embassy of Nigeria, Wagenaarweg 5, 2597 LL, The Hague. The use of Post Code No. is redundant but proves my point, a tyro wrote this.

Item 5; English, I believe is still the language for the dissemination of official documents in Nigeria. If that be the case, it is not too exacting to expect the usage of correct grammar and number agreement. Would “who have satisfied” be better than “who satisfied”?

In the same sentence, the indefinite article “a passport” would have been preferred to the definite article “the passport”, I suppose the excuse of English not being the author’s first language might suffice in Nigeria, but surely not in The Netherlands, relatively, Nigerians should and must be better speakers, writers and users of the English language than the Dutch.

Item 6; There might be some disagreement about the use of hyphens in this phrase, which means there would be no preferential treatment or reservations. It is a contraction of “the first to come is the first served”. Hence, it should be first-come first-serveD, not forgetting the essential “D” at the end. Phew!

Item 7; “The Her Excellency”, our pre-occupation with obsequiousness and predilection for titles can get us into serious trouble. Perish the thought that the ambassador is being addressed as such. I swoon with a backhand to my tilted forehead.

Going back to the caption that accompanies the photograph of Dr. (Mrs.) N. N. Akanbi – She is the Nigerian Ambassador to the Royal Kingdom of the Netherlands in The Hague if we are to follow with consistency the way the president has been addressed in the photograph to the left of the ambassador – maybe I am just being pedantic, but surely, it is not too much to ask for.

It is also my desire that all publications from the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria have a modicum of professionalism, attention to detail and show us all in better light than this.

Honestly, I am appalled.

Sources

[1] Akin: Nigeria: Ike follows the Babcock University cock-up too

[2] Akin: Nigeria: Reviewing the Nigeria @ 50 website

[3] the embassy of nigeria in the hague, the netherlands

Applying to a correction institution

Irretrievable errors

I do not want to be worried but I am getting concerned – my blogs I can review for years; proofreading, correcting and adjusting as I find errors, emails are a completely different matter.

In the last few weeks, I have had the sad situation of reviewing some emails I sent out only to be mortified beyond words – spelling errors, contexts wrong, even the mobile phone number in my signature has been wrong for weeks – Unbelievable.

This is quite unlike me, I have tried to introduce compensatory measures to deal with certain aspects of my communication – years ago, I found if I had to transcribe numbers I seemed to mess them up, so I broke the groups of numbers down, wrote them down in batches and then reviewed them twice before I was sure I had done that right.

Review, edit, correct

In some of my blogs, I have decided the best proofreading is to read the blog back out loud to myself and that seems to show up issues with construction and writing that I can correct.

What is of concern is that I do know what I am thinking and I cannot understand why what I am thinking does not seem to end up at my fingertips and on screen.

How allocations in my head became applocations on an email does give one a spot of bother. I am usually able to spot irregular patterns or improper constructions on review but it seems this requires a cooling period between writing and review to see things with different eyes.

I would suppose blogs can wait, emails however are written on spur of the moment and sent by which time your reputation is either made or lost with redemption almost beyond grasp.

I wonder if this is a matter of losing concentration because I usually have a good penchant for attention to detail and normally think I could be meticulous to a fault – but if faults belie my presumed meticulousness – we have a problem in need of an urgent solution.

What to do?