about

There are no ads, trackers, or social features here, and I don't make any money from this site.

It's a small callback to what I loved about the early internet, when a website could exist simply because someone had something they wanted to share.

Yes, I use AI all the time, including for my writing, and I'm always going to be upfront about that. I also want to explain how I use it, so you know what goes into the essays here.

I also hate how it writes when you just let it go, like, hate it. The excessive em dashes, the engagement bait, the fake little "not X, but Y" reveals. The dramatic one-line zingers, the unnecessary reassurance, the same thought repeated three times with fancier wording. Then a conclusion, apparently for anyone who missed all three attempts.

You need something you want to communicate before asking AI to help you write, even if this briefly delays your appointment as a LinkedIn thought leader.

It can be rough, and you can change your mind as you work through it, but going straight from a prompt to a polished article skips figuring out what you have to say.

Some of the LinkedIn crowd and the influencers would have you believe you can just summon insight into existence this way. So you end up asking for nonsense like this:

Write me a paragraph explaining why AI-assisted writing is a good idea.

Which naturally gives you shallow garbage like this, ready for someone to post above a photograph of themselves looking thoughtful:

AI-assisted writing can be a powerful tool for enhancing creativity and productivity. By combining human insight with advanced technology, writers can work more efficiently while maintaining their unique voice. Ultimately, AI can serve as a collaborative partner that improves the writing process and keeps human creativity at the center.

Wonderful, my unique voice appears to be a corporate brochure with a passing interest in human creativity.

I'd bring the idea to AI and fight with it about it. Ask it to challenge the assumptions, make the strongest case against the argument, and ask questions you haven't answered yet, especially the ones you'd prefer everyone to politely overlook. My prompts usually look more like this.

I think AI can help with writing, but I don't know which parts of that claim I believe yet.

Challenge my assumptions. Ask me questions one at a time about how I use AI and what I refuse to let it do.

Don't write the section for me. Stop when I have enough to make my own outline.

Once I've worked through those questions, I choose the ideas I want to develop, put them into an outline, and write from there. Later, I ask for a critique and decide which objections need more work. If it mostly tells me how insightful I am, I ask again, with considerably less patience.

I delete most of the prose it suggests and rewrite what I keep, including the polished horseshit it offers as an improvement.

And if, after all that work, I realize I don't have anything interesting to contribute, I shut up and don't post it.

Choosing not to publish empty, shallow garbage is just as valuable as publishing something I believe is worth reading.

Because I'm not some artisanal blogger typing manifestos on a hand-cranked typewriter in a treehouse of reclaimed driftwood. I'm just a caffeinated human with internet access, trying to make sense of both the technical and emotional sides of our weird AI moment.

Using AI comes with responsibility, and I own every word I choose to publish here, whether AI generated it or I typed it myself, including anything stupid I decide to put my name on.