I’ve been having an internal debate with myself about whether or not to leave a comment, because I’m struggling to find anything positive to say. I love weekend projects and don't ever want to discourage people from doing them.
But the other side of that debate in my head comes from the way I feel about this idea relative to blogging. I read blogs because I want to hear directly from another human. I also care about the subject matter they’re writing about, but part of the reason I care is because it’s a slice of someone’s perspective. Their life experiences. How a particular subject relates to them personally. How they solved a particular problem. Even when a blog post is purely technical with no personal narrative, it usually provides a snapshot of some aspect of some other human’s life, and the way they structure the words they wrote is a reflection of how their brain works.
I also enjoy seeing the progression of thought over time from authors. They’ll write about something and later realize some nuance was wrong, and they’ll write about their updated understanding.
I worry that the more disconnected authors become from their writing, the less aware they’ll be of the potential impact of their words, and those “aha! that thing I wrote 6 months ago was crap for xyz reason” moments are less likely to happen.
To me, AI-assisted blogging just fundamentally devalues the content. As a reader, I can’t know if what I’m reading is real to the author, or a flourish/detail fed to them by an LLM that they liked. Lately I’ve encountered an increasing number of posts that have those telltale (or obvious) signs, and I immediately stop reading. I’m no longer interested.
If I wanted LLM output about a given subject, I’d go to ChatGPT myself.
I think there’s a place for LLMs and some real value to be gained. But when it comes to blogging (and many types of writing), I think it’s a net negative to society.
I’d like to see a standard emerge where blogs can label themselves “No AI”.
But the other side of that debate in my head comes from the way I feel about this idea relative to blogging. I read blogs because I want to hear directly from another human. I also care about the subject matter they’re writing about, but part of the reason I care is because it’s a slice of someone’s perspective. Their life experiences. How a particular subject relates to them personally. How they solved a particular problem. Even when a blog post is purely technical with no personal narrative, it usually provides a snapshot of some aspect of some other human’s life, and the way they structure the words they wrote is a reflection of how their brain works.
I also enjoy seeing the progression of thought over time from authors. They’ll write about something and later realize some nuance was wrong, and they’ll write about their updated understanding.
I worry that the more disconnected authors become from their writing, the less aware they’ll be of the potential impact of their words, and those “aha! that thing I wrote 6 months ago was crap for xyz reason” moments are less likely to happen.
To me, AI-assisted blogging just fundamentally devalues the content. As a reader, I can’t know if what I’m reading is real to the author, or a flourish/detail fed to them by an LLM that they liked. Lately I’ve encountered an increasing number of posts that have those telltale (or obvious) signs, and I immediately stop reading. I’m no longer interested.
If I wanted LLM output about a given subject, I’d go to ChatGPT myself.
I think there’s a place for LLMs and some real value to be gained. But when it comes to blogging (and many types of writing), I think it’s a net negative to society.
I’d like to see a standard emerge where blogs can label themselves “No AI”.