One of the least interesting parts of being a freelance editor is the clerical stuff. I can be amused by typos. I can slog through the tedium of ensuring that subjects and verbs agree. I have even learned to accept using my iPhone to deposit checks into my business account.

But I’m still a mostly analog girl. (Also chocolate. And jewelry. If you’re asking.) For instance, here is my time worksheet for a job I did recently for a New York publisher. Dates, time started and ended, and total hours for a client whom I just billed. (Client name hidden to protect the innocent.)

My spouse walked into my office as I was totting this all up on my calculator so I could write my invoice. (Working from home has its advantages. In particular, I can send him to the kitchen for more chocolate.)

He’s been playing with ChatGPT. He uses it for small, annoying tasks. One is converting text into a spreadsheet (you may use Excel, but out in the world there’s Google Sheets and Apple’s Numbers). He’s also been amused by ChatGPT’s ability to convert the handwriting in an image to text; it means he doesn’t have to retype as often.

“Okay, smart guy,” I said, sending him the above image. “See what ChatGPT can do with this.”

Fifteen minutes later, I got his email. ChatGPT misunderstood the relationship between my columns, didn’t follow his direction, and didn’t include some data. By then I’d tallied my numbers twice (editor, remember?) and sent off my spreadsheet.

So when you read that AI is going to replace us all, it might. But I can assure you that it’s much better to bill the right amount than have some computer hardware in a field in the middle of nowhere fail to do what it’s asked to do. And I still haven’t seen it give anybody chocolate.