Our May meeting will be held on Saturday, May 13, starting at noon CT. Following a brief business meeting, we’ll turn to our speaker who will tell us more about AI for Writers. This new technology offers both challenges and opportunities for writers, so we hope you’ll join us for an interesting, and probably a lively conversation. Nonmembers may attend up to two meetings as a guest before membership is required. If you’d like to attend via Zoom, please contact us for the meeting invite. See you there!

About the speaker: Thomas Woods, M.Ed., is an instructor of history and education and coordinator for online learning at Schreiner University in Kerrville, TX. He has taught at Schreiner University as a part time instructor since 2015, and in 2019 he started to work at Schreiner University full-time. He earned a B.A. in History from Schreiner University and an M.Ed. in History from Texas State University. He has taught a variety of classes at the high school and college level, including world geography, world history, US history, psychology, economics, and U.S. government; additionally, he holds certifications in teaching English language arts. Most recently he has developed and is co-teaching a “Writing with AI” course at Schreiner University. He lives in Kerrville, TX, with his wife, Emily, his four-year old son, Liam, and his 8-month-old daughter, Lily.

Mr. Woods will present an overview of the technology behind large language models such as GPT-3 and GPT-4, which power ChatGPT, with an emphasis on how they work and what their capabilities and limitations are. We will also discuss some potential impacts of these technologies in the short term and long term, with an emphasis on considerations specific to the writing and publishing industry.