In the Age of AI, Be Authentic

  A Manifesto for Genealogists, Historical Writers, and Authors

Genealogists and historians are no longer approaching the age of AI.
We are challenged by it daily in our blogs, our social media posts, and our research writings.

 AI can rewrite, summarize, reshape, and repackage language at extraordinary speed. It can generate blog posts, captions, outlines, descriptions, and polished paragraphs in seconds. We have seen plagiarism from the a3Genealogy blog (https://a3genealogy.blogspot.com/).

I do not want our readers to leave asking the following questions:

1. What belongs to the human researcher?
2. What still belongs to the author?

So, how do we live alongside AI? We write our expertise. We write what we can prove. 

I write a genealogical and historical blog. I produce articles for magazines and content for the Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen podcast. The case studies, examples, and shared experiences are directly tied to a3Genealogy client research and historical documents. So, to distinguish my writings from AI-generated text, I make it personal. I make it authentic, I make it "unmistakably" mine. 

AI can generate language.

But, it cannot do what real historical work requires:

It cannot analyze conflicting evidence or determine the need or reasoning for a proof argument.
It cannot assess deeper suggestions of missing records or the conflicts proposed on surviving ones.
It cannot determine how supplementary records, i.e., widow’s pension, tax list, church registers, county boundary changes, or a misspelled surname will influence a research plan.

Frustration is not a plan.

And anger is not a strategy.

I know that blog posts written for a3Genealogy  years ago, as early as 2008, are fodder for AI. When I was a teenager, my mother used to say, “Once you tell one person, it’s no longer a secret.” As an adult, I now understand that lesson differently: 

My goal is neither to compete with AI nor to devalue it as a "research tool." But AI cannot replace my experience, my client base, or the authenticity of twenty years of client-based and personal research.

So, the real question is not whether AI is here to stay.
           It is.

The real question is this:

How do we, as genealogists, historians, and authors,
write in the AI era, without losing ourselves to it?

For me, the answer is clear:

I must write authentically, not fast. 

I am Kathleen Strader Brandt of the Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen podcast. The life-long mentor for genealogists and a3Genealogy interns. The researcher for unique family histories. AI can't take that away from me. 

However, AI can assist - i.e., need a date quickly? To me, it's like a dictionary; an encyclopedia (if you remember them before wiki and the internet). It's a reference tool without a Dewey Decimal System, but I still get to gather information, analyze, and synthesize the data. 

But, it cannot do what real historical work requires:

It cannot sit with a document and weigh the uncertainty of conflicting data.
It cannot understand why a missing record may be the answer; or the key to a proof argument. 
It cannot prove family ties using collaborative data: surname conflicts in a widow’s pension file, a tax list, a church register, a county boundary change, or generational changes of a family 
surname.
It cannot empathize with the emotions of your ancestors or your readers.

AI is not human.

It lacks cognitive dissonance. 
It lacks a belief system.
It cannot ask the deeper question: Who is missing, and why?AI can assemble facts.
It cannot replace discernment.

   And discernment is where our authority lives.

This is to say, our writings, our author's touch, will be recognized by creating authentic content:

Good writing, beyond that of AI rewrites and plagiarism, adds human values. 

The ability to Connect evidence to meaning
The ability to Analyze and Interpret community and social practices
The ability to Contextualize.
The ability to Teach. 

 In other words:

           The future belongs to the subject matter expert. 

Not the loudest voice.
Not the fastest publisher.
Not the person who can produce the most in the shortest amount of time. 

The future belongs to the person who can say:

I know this field.
I know these records.
I know this history.
And I know how to help others understand it with integrity. 

That is the work now.
Not to outpace the machine, but to go where the machine cannot follow: 

Into nuance.
Into ethics.
Into humanity.

So perhaps this is not the end of authorship.

Perhaps this is the moment authorship becomes more defined.

If AI can produce quick, shallow content, then expertise matters more.

So, I am not asking how to fight AI.
I am asking something more important: 

How do I root my research writing in a manner that 
my experience, my standards, and my voice
cannot be mistaken for anything but my own?

This is the work now.
And perhaps this has always been the work.

This manifesto come from my own work as a genealogist, researcher, and writer in an evolving AI landscape.