This morning I found myself going down a new WordPress 7.1 rabbit hole. I was faced with integrating a Google Gemini API key, and subsequent credit costs into the new Connectors plugin within WordPress, the driving force? To see how well it did creating ALT text for images in my media libray. I quickly found myself debating whether spending a few pennies (I assume) on credits to do this was a good thing saving the work of thinking and writing descriptive words about images. In the end I went with the idea that it was probably better for me to suffer the ‘grind’ of going through images a few at a time, to not spend money on something I could easily do. In fact the exercise of doing the work would actually be beneficial to me, to look closely at images, to think, and to describe. Instead of pushing a button, and agreeing or disagreeing with a computer’s interpretation of an image.
I still need to try it though, once I have fought through adding payment credits etc just so I can understand more fully what it can do, and how well it can do it. I’m still not convinced this is a good thing for any of us to save ourselves what we see as ‘effort’. Effort is important, it helps us value things, and to remember.
