> It's not so much that I think people have used AI, but that I know they have with a high degree of certainty, and this certainty is converging to 100%, simply because there is no way it will not. If you write regularly and you're not using AI, you simply cannot keep up with the competition.
I am writing regularly and I will never use AI. In fact I am working on a 400+ pages book right now and it does not contain a single character that I have not come up with and typed myself. Something like pride in craftmanship does exist.
Also currently working on a book (shameless plug: buy my book!) and feel no pull or need to involve AI. This book is my mine. My faults. My shortcomings. My overuse of commas. My wonky phrasing. It has to have those things, because I am those things (for better or worse!).
I'm right there with you. I write short and medium form articles for my personal site (link in bio, follow it or don't, the world keeps spinning either way). I will never use AI as part of this craft. If that hampers my output, or puts me at a disadvantage compared to the competition, or changes the opinion others have of me, I really don't care.
What I write is pretty niche anyway (compilers, LISP, buddhism, advaita), so I do not think AI will cause much trouble. Google ranking small websites into oblivion, though, I do notice that!
I use a spell checker to catch typos. Occasional quirky grammar is mine. Feedback will be provided by the audience. Why would I let a statistical model judge my work? This is how you kill originality.
i didn’t imply you’d need an LLM to “rate” your content. More so asking questions during and before the publishing step to help you improve your work. Not removing your identity from your work. Examples questions of what you could ask an LLM:
• are there any redundant sentences or points in this chapter?
• i’m trying to remember an expression used to convey X, can you remind me what it is?
• i’m familiar with X from my industry Y, but i’m trying to convey this to an audience from industry Z. Can you help brainstorm some words or examples they may be more familiar with?
Things like that. I think of it like having a virtual rubber duck that can help you debug code, or anything really.
Obviously these are just some suggestions. If you don’t find any of this useful, or even interesting, then carry on. :)
I see. Most of the things you list I think I could do better on my own. The case of X from industry Y sounds interesting, but I would still prefer to hear from a real human being from industry Z. If no one is available, of course, a statistical model may indeed be helpful -- I still do not think it is worth boiling the oceans, though. :)
This. I use AI to bounce off ideas when i wordsmith for work, but mostly when my human counterpart is unavailable to do so and I can't wait until they return eg. when they were on extended time off.
The AI isn't as good though, it's like asking an overeager intern instead of a thoughtful senior.
Add to it that not all LLMs are equal: at work I have access to the latest GPT models and can customize them myself. At home anything I tried in LM studio feels very limited/inflexible. All models i tried running were useless except one codestruct, which was half decent at answering clarification questions about c# code from tutorial, but failed the task i initially tried it for: generating bespoke tutorials that fit my knowledge gaps, which would have been my ideal scenario because most tutorials aren't written for someone like me.
It's another reason LLMs are a bit disappointing to me, they don't seem to be good at handling queries I couldn't solve with a web search, and have similar issues as search results when they do have answers - this makes sense since that's how they are trained, but often defeats the purpose for me.
I am writing regularly and I will never use AI. In fact I am working on a 400+ pages book right now and it does not contain a single character that I have not come up with and typed myself. Something like pride in craftmanship does exist.