Every person has rules that they apply to themself, red lines that they won’t cross. For me, signing my name to anything generated by AI is one of those. I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about why.
I spend a lot of time writing. Some is on this site, though much more of my work isn’t public, is published elsewhere, not yet published, or ghost written for others. On this site, according to the stats, I’ve spent at least 864 hours writing the content you see here. That’s over a month of continuous writing. That’s over a month of my life dedicated to sharing information and working to prompt further discussion and contemplation. Yet I never have, nor ever will, sign my name to anything written with AI1.
For some readers, this will seem to be a given due to objections2 to generative AI. After all, generative AI may be the most hated technology since the industrial revolution3. For others, they focus on benefits and the ability to “create” more content in less time, or overcome physical limitations4, or write in languages they haven’t mastered, or any of a thousand other reasons they could cite. This essay isn’t about either of those positions.
In fact, this article isn’t truly about AI at all. While it does center on generative AI, it’s not the AI that matters here. Allow me to explain.
Whether one writes to document a system, answer a question, share experiences, or tell a story, it’s a form of art. Conveying knowledge and understanding to another through crafted prose and thoughtful constructs, this is both an art and a critical skill. For those of us that work in the technology industry, our ability to clearly and effectively convey information is vital to our success. For those that write to tell stories, true or fiction, they raise this art higher, to convey emotions.
What starts as a simple effort to express a thought or idea becomes a craft with experience, and an art as skill grows. Each word selected to achieve the desired effect. Intent laden and time consuming to do well (or well enough, as in my case5), good writing requires more than a catalog of words and a working understanding of a language. It requires an understanding of the reader, their experiences, their knowledge, their perspective. The best writers use their knowledge to write for not a single reader, but many readers, each with different backgrounds. They blend all this carefully, thoughtfully, and with exacting detail.
When you encounter anything from a technical analysis to a fictional tale, if you walked away understanding more than you did before, it’s because of that careful intent. And intent is what this article is actually about.
Starting when I was frequently answering programming questions in forums as a teenager, providing detailed and lengthy answers to complex questions, it was clear that the single most valuable skill I could develop wasn’t memoizing more development trivia or adding more programming languages, it was writing. Clear, careful, thoughtful, and targeted communication is the difference between building a career and being sidelined. Ensuring that others understand exactly what you need them to understand6 is the single most important skill anyone can develop. Without that, other skills are far less useful.
I did not start writing for the sake of writing, or for the sake of creating, but as an effort to develop a critical skill. Many millions of words later, this skill has served me well, and is one that I continue to invest in.
In the nearly 1,000 hours that I have spent writing content for this site, it has never been part of my income, it has never paid a single bill. Essays such as this, are instead a gift, given freely to readers, in hopes that it will spark discussion or thought. The only benefit I receive for the hours invested is an opportunity to learn new things through the research required, and some slow polishing of the skills I’ve developed for conveying information and ideas.
For many readers, the letters iddqd will be immediately recognisable, the ultimate cheat code for Doom. Full health, no damage. Or maybe dnstuff was your ultimate cheat; granting all keys, weapons, and ammo in Duke Nukem 3D. A few keystrokes and the challenge was gone. You could play through the game quickly, easily, and without a worry.
When the game was over though, nothing was accomplished. There was nothing to be proud of. No skill was improved. No knowledge gained. It was done, but a meaningless and empty event.
In the mid to late 1990s, I spent some time making custom maps for both of these games, this included countless tweaks, hundreds of tests, and hour upon hour of playing the same levels over and over. While working on the maps it made perfect sense to use the cheat codes. There was a time and place where the point wasn’t the journey, but getting to the end to achieve something else.
AI, for many, is a cheat code. It’s a way to move through a task quickly, to get to the end without investing the level of time, energy, effort, or thought otherwise needed.
There are times, in my opinion, that using a cheat code makes sense. You need to get around something that would take time, you wouldn’t get anything useful from the journey, and it’s in the way of getting to something more important.
There are other times that using a cheat code only cheats yourself. You miss out on the journey, the research, the knowledge, the experience. Generative AI has proven itself to be a highly effective cheat code for many, especially when it comes to writing. A person can spend 30 seconds writing a prompt, and they get a 1,500 word essay. An essay devoid of intent. An experience devoid of benefit.
If you’ll indulge me, I’ll continue with the cheat code analogy.
Some games can provide deep immersion, great acting, compelling stories, and journeys that matter far more than the destination. A few examples, for me, have been Expedition 33, Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and Alan Wake – all of these can provide a remarkable journey when you invest the time and effort into them. But, there’s a better example: MyHouse.wad7. This appears to be a custom map for Doom, one that is superficially simple. However, through exploration, there is vastly more to be found than what appears on the surface. In reality, it’s an expansive experience that goes beyond the carefully crafted in-game journey.
I use MyHouse.wad as an example here, as it’s a perfect analogy. If you take the easy route and complete the map quickly, if you judge the game by what you see on the surface, you miss a journey that will stay with you for weeks. Worse, you’d have no idea what you had missed. Missing out and not even knowing it simply adds insult to injury.
Some time ago, I wrote an article about how aviation safety lessons can be applied to security. This required weeks of research, identifying source materials, reading countless PDFs and investigative reports. This was one of the most time consuming articles I’ve ever written. It was also a great experience, and gave me a number of opportunities to learn more, dive deeper, find new parallels, and improve the work.
Today, with a well structured prompt, I could produce a blog post on the same topic in about 5 minutes. It would read well enough and it would likely make good points8. Yet it wouldn’t have intent, it wouldn’t have lived experience, it wouldn’t have insight that built on understanding of separate industries that can learn from each other.
Yet, going with the cheat code route would have cheated me out of valuable opportunities to learn and grow. It also would have cheated readers out of their valuable time. Asking a person to read, to take their time and attention, and spending it on something that wasn’t worth the time to write is simply insulting. Time is too limited and too valuable to ask another to waste it.
As frequent readers are likely aware, I’ve written quite a few articles about AI – from impact to jobs to debating the questionable creative value of AI content, and even explored far future implications of artificial life (and more). I’ve explored these topics as, regardless of how anyone feels about it, generative AI is one of the most consequential technologies developed in decades. Even if one believes that it’s all hype, that doesn’t change the impact it’s having to the economy, jobs, and the growing impact to how people work on a daily basis.
There are wide gulfs in how people perceive generative AI, and nuance is becoming harder to find in these conversations. Yet the reality is that use is spreading, and in some areas, it’s nearly impossible to avoid. At this point I would argue that nearly all codebases with a non-trivial number of developers includes AI generated code9. The only question is if developers and companies are willing to be honest about that fact.
In management, there is fear of being left behind if it’s not used, that competitors that embrace it will be able to pull ahead. Venture capital firms make it clear that heavy AI integration is now table stakes – new startups that don’t make extensive use of AI are considered to not be viable. Universities increasingly make AI usage a standard part of their programs, as it’s assumed that understanding AI will be necessary to work in the future.
Saying that everyone else is doing it is an argument that can be seductive, yet changes nothing. It’s still a cheat code and using cheat codes comes with consequences. One should understand those consequences well before using them, and in which scenarios it’s appropriate for them.
Some people will use AI for everything, others will use it for nothing. For me, I’m somewhere between these extremes. I would rather spend my limited time to create and spend time with those that matter, and if there’s a cheat code that’ll allow me to waste less time, I will10. Time is precious, too precious to waste.
When I say this, I’m not just talking about my time, I’m also talking about your time. And I would like to thank you for your time, your attention, and the opportunity to hopefully inspire more detailed and nuanced consideration of a divisive and complex topic.
Like every article on this site, this was written by hand, one keystroke at a time. Like every other article, not a single word was written by generative AI. That won’t change. Out of respect for those that take the time to read these articles, that will never change.
There are roughly three articles here that include AI generated content, used as examples for discussion, and are clearly labeled as such. ↩︎
The moral, ethical, legal, environmental, and economic issues related to generative AI and the companies that develop the underlying models is beyond the scope of this article. Countless articles have been written about these issues, some nuanced and exploring complex issues, others taking a more simplistic view. Addressing these issues in a fair way would require an effort far larger than the scope of this article. As the full complexity is too extensive to fairly explore here, these issues will not be addressed. ↩︎
A recent informal poll on Mastodon showed over 50% of respondents have adopted an approach of avoiding the technology whenever possible. The last major change in technology that resulted in such a substantial popular resistance was likely the Luddite movement of the early 1800s, driven by a group of textile workers that believed that changes in technology would reduce jobs & pay, lower quality, and worsen working conditions. This was exacerbated by a weak economy, with low job security, high underemployment, and raising inflation. This comparison is not made as a slight to those that oppose generative AI or the companies that power it, but to show the closest historical comparison. ↩︎
In a prior essay I shared a personal example of how this, to some degree, applies to me due to a rare hereditary degenerative neurological disorder. This impacts fine motor control and causes a tremor in my hands that has been growing over time, and results in escalating restrictions on my ability to engage in certain activities. The impact on my photography has been growing, and some activities, such as painting, are effectively impossible due to lack of precision. While this is not an argument that I will engage in personally, it is one that I am sympathetic to. ↩︎
Despite the title you see above, I do not truly consider myself a writer, but a person that writes. I’ve had the honour to work with true writers, and their skill and ability far exceeds my own. It is a craft I care about, though a title I don’t feel I’ve earned. ↩︎
I would be remiss to not take this opportunity to remind readers that when writing, or otherwise communicating, what one says matters far less than what others understand. No matter how clear you think you are, if others have a different understanding than that you intended, you have failed. This is one of the most challenging aspects of writing, regardless of venue or type. ↩︎
Instead of providing an overview, such as the one on Wikipedia, if you are unfamiliar with this, I strongly recommend this YouTube video which includes a play though and explanation. This is a long video, at over an hour and a half, though it provides the best way to experience this that I’ve found. This is a remarkably well constructed experience, and one that is well worth the time. ↩︎
While writing this, I asked ChatGPT & Gemini to do just this: create an article covering the same subject matter, to see how they would compare. Both created reasonable drafts with useful though incomplete explanations. Both were at or above the quality one would expect to see on LinkedIn or average corporate blogs. Gemini did provide better narrative and prose, though the insight was lacking and was far from complete. Neither were of sufficient quality to reproduce for the sake of comparison. ↩︎
Based on industry trends, surveys, private conversations with various organisations. For codebases that are under active development, with a non-trivial number of developers, it’s almost certain that either the company is supporting the use of AI generated code, or developers are using generation tools independently. There will be some exceptions, though the number is almost certainly far lower than some would expect. ↩︎
I wrote more about my take on tools that improve productivity in Developer Tools & Productivity. ↩︎
