Introduction#

Using AI as a tool can be great to help build software quickly (as long as there is a good babysitter), but for blogging I find it lacking. Maybe my blog workflow needs more work, better skills and tools, and/or better tonal guides, but it seems to be not quite what I’m looking for.

The AI definitely gives a good starting point for the blog, but I’ve had to make so many edits, that it doesn’t particularly seem worth it. I might as well just write the whole thing myself.

I do plan on still using AI for blogging to fill in the summaries and tags, verify links, spelling, and grammar, and to potentially make suggestions. However, the actual content will be me.

Blogging Problems#

Tone#

Tone was the biggest problem. While I might not be terribly funny, I like a little bit of humor here and there and dabble in self-deprecating humor. The AI kept adding in jokes in every paragraph and as much as possible. No need for that, just a sprinkle is good.

The other tonal problem was, I guess, it just didn’t sound like me. The AI used words I wouldn’t, phrasing I wouldn’t, and so on. So I would have to read carefully and make copious edits to make sure the blogs actually said what I wanted them to say.

At the end of the day, whether I wrote the blog, an AI did and I edited it, or I just published the AI wholesale (never did), the buck stops with me. So I want it to sound like me.

Formatting#

There were two big formatting issues, layout (including header naming) and character usage. Overall, I like to use ASCII as much as possible (unless otherwise needed or for emojis 😂). The AI would use em dashes instead of hyphens or commas … all over the place. Even updating my SKILL to explicitly disallow it, didn’t work. That was probably the biggest annoyance. It would also pretty consistently use fancy double quotes instead of regular.

For layout, depending on the post, sometimes I like to “theme” my headings. Questions, statements, few words, lots of words, use one or two as a joke, etc. It is really hard to put that kind of wishy-washy on-the-fly decision making into a SKILL or rule for the AI.

Blogging Conclusion#

Maybe I could spend some time to really curate my blogging SKILL, maybe even have multiple agents work on it at the same time, to get the type of output I’m looking for. Maybe I could make it so close to perfect, that I wouldn’t have to make many changes. Maybe I could get it to the point of being able to just throw ideas at the wall (read AI) and have new blog posts every week at almost no effort from me.

But why. Why even have a blog if I’m just going to have AI write it wholesale. Why work so hard to create rules, that may or may not work for new models, so I don’t have to be creative in any way.

Recently I heard a line from Hank Green, “No effort is wasted”. AI might have effort up front (so not wasted), but then it just does all the work for me after that. In the case of a blog that doesn’t seem worth it.

By putting in effort to write the blog posts I might learn something new, get better at writing (and spelling, spell checkers are my saving grace), maybe even build a useful backlog of knowledge (or at least a backlog of useless, but not wasted, information).

Coding#

For coding on the other hand it is an amazing tool.

Clarification#

There are both ethical and environmental concerns with how they were trained and used. The problem with those is the genie is out of the bottle, it isn’t going back.

We should absolutely be working toward sustainable ways to use AI

This isn’t a throw your hands up with either “get rid of all AI data centers!” or “whelp we’re screwed anyway, so full coal powered steam ahead!” There is a balanced approach and we should absolutely be working toward that end.

It’s a Tool#

AI is a tool like any other. It’s good when used by someone skilled and bad when used by someone who is not.

A developer using AI must have a background in development in general, a bunch of languages (so they can quickly learn new ones), and in the language they are using the AI for. That way they can monitor the AI and make sure it’s producing good code.

Coding Conclusion#

This section was short on purpose. This blog post was primarily about how I’m going to use AI moving forward for the blog. I’ll create another one about my insights into AI as a tool for development.

Conclusion Conclusion#

Here is the summary:

  • For me, AI being the primary author of a blog post does not work
  • From here forward (maybe I’ll revisit, we’ll see), I’m going to write my blog posts
  • AI will be used to write summaries, generate tags, and verify content (but not modify content)
  • For coding, I’ll continue to use AI where it makes sense