31st August, 2026

Think

A thought for your day, with my good wishes …

To live is to think.

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

A thought for your day, featuring photography from my travels. These shots: I came across the first group of sheep near Breasclete, on the remote Isle of Lewis in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. The sheep by the stone cottage were not far away, in Arnol.

I chose today’s quote after receiving an email I’m pretty sure AI generated on behalf of an acquaintance. Its contents did not reflect the sender’s usual grammar, or that person’s way of speaking and writing. Vocabulary and grammar aside, I was struck by how thoroughly the email message addressed and summarised a number of points contained in earlier threads of our recent communications.

What to make of this? On the one hand, this email was well intended and positive in nature. On the other hand, it did not sound at all like the sender. It leaves me guessing the sender fed our previous emails into AI and included a prompt directing the system to prepare a certain type of reply. I appreciate the person wanted to communicate effectively and yet, in doing so, the email came with a flag – whether I’m right or wrong in my take on this – that the actual words came from artificial, rather than independent, human thinking and intelligence. I would have been happy to receive an email that sounded like the sender came up with the words.

I’ve been writing about AI for years, and appreciate all the responses coming in to my 2026 survey on AI in your career. If you’ve not yet participate, please do click here to add your responses to the 12 multiple choice questions. As always, you’re welcome to add any comment you may have at the end of the survey.

If you’d like to see more of my travel videos and pics, you’re welcome to join me on Instagram and YouTube, without needing your own accounts to access what you’ll see there.

Images © 2026 Shelagh Donnelly. All rights reserved.