Please Stop Authoring With Ai

Please Stop Authoring With AI

Written word - especially technical writing - has a few particular purposes I find really valuable;

1. When you write something down it creates clarity. You’re not just writing, you’re reading, you’re probably also speaking, you’re doing a lot of thinking. The words are both your thoughts and a mechanism to do thinking. You probably reorganize, rewrite, if you’re an expert you toil over your words anticipating how someone might interpret them wrong. This process builds empathy for a reader and clarity of thought.
2. It’s a substitute for conversation. We wrote down stories that we would tell around the campfire so they could be shared. Someone felt a certain way, and that’s why the text exists. When someone I work with asks to talk to me that time is sacred, I’m learning more about them and their feelings and where they need support. Written word was supposed to be the same, from a text message to a design doc. I want to both read the words and try to understand how you felt writing them so I can actually hear you and respond to you, not just your words.
3. Writing tempers emotions. If you’re anxious about something, you can write it down, and for many (me) that is enough to help relieve the anxiety. Writing induces actual chemical changes in your brain that promote good mental health. Sitting down with a blank google doc or pen and paper you can start as a ball of fire and end with something more sane. Or you end with a ball of fire and chuck it in the trash and feel better. Is this particular bullet point too meta?

The robots are good at research. I don’t mind when the robots talk to me. It’s good that I understand what they plan on doing and they communicate that using my language. The robots coding and talking to me feels significantly less dystopian than the robots puppetting peoples faces and names. Please stop authoring with AI, let the robots speak for themselves.