On Sun, Jul 26, 2026 at 06:53:40PM -0500, Theodore Tso wrote:
>
> Note that anyone using Gmail will have the e-mail composition making
> suggestions to fix missing words, fixing singular/plural noun/verb
> agreement, "cutting fluff" (removing extra words that aren't
> necessary, changing passive to active voice, etc.) --- basically, the
> sort of thing that a human copywriter might do.
As an example of the sort of assistance that GMail provides using LLM,
consider the following sentence that I had written in an e-mail (in my
role as Treasurer for the Episcopal Diocese of MAssachusetts):
However, at the August and September Council meetings, we
didn't ask Council to approve the 3-year budget projections,
and while it was included in the budget booklet, it wasn't
something that we highlighted at the Preconvention Hearings
or at the Budget presentation at Convention.
GMail, using the assistance of an LLM, made the following suggestions,
using a green-wavy line to indicate where it thought could make an
improvement:
However, at the August and September Council meetings, we
didn't ask Council to approve the 3-year budget projections,
^^^ the ^^^ .
and while it was included in the budget booklet, it wasn't
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Although the projections... ^^^^^^^^^
something that we highlighted at the Preconvention Hearings
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ we didn't highlight them during
or at the Budget presentation at Convention.
After I accepted all of the suggestions via a right-click of my mouse,
the net result was:
However, at the August and September Council meetings, we didn't ask
the Council to approve the 3-year budget projections. Although the
projections were included in the budget booklet, we didn't highlight
them during the Preconvention Hearings or at the Budget presentation
at Convention.
So this use of an LLM, which is built into the mail web interface,
corrected the use of the passive voice, and split a sentence to make
it more readable. The result was more readable, and improved my
human-to-human conversation between myself, the chair of the Finance
Committee, our Chief Financial Officer, and our bishop's Chief of
Staff when I was describing our past practice for how we handled our
3-year budget projections in the past.
I would assert that this kind of assistance is not something that we
would want make verboten, and consider as a violation of our Code of
Conduct. Fortunately, since the GR hasn't passed, it's currently not
a CoC violation. And I would hope most DD's would agree it would not
be productive to make this a CoC violation.
Best regards,
- Ted
