Generative AI for Blogging: Revisited

About 6 months ago I did an experiment with using generative AI tools to write blog posts. It was part of a wider “understand if this stuff is useful and what its limitations are” exercise I needed to go through for work; it’s a hot topic and I needed to understand it - which involved using it, basically. I usually learn best by doing

In the end I wrote 3 posts using “GenAI”, using a couple of different methods (ranked in order from least satisfying result to “most satisfying”):

1. “AI take the wheel” - input a prompt, look at the output, refine the prompt until it was closer to what I wanted. Make slight tweaks to spelling and grammar. Post. This was the quickest way of using the tools. Partly done this way because I was in the process of leaving the cinema.
2. “Fill out this first draft outline” - write my own outline with some first draft points, then have the tools rewrite and expand on it. Again, make minor edits for clarity/remove Americanisms. This one was sorta-okay, but lacks polish and has a weird, disjointed tone and writing style.
3. “Let’s collaborate” - the most involved process, taking much, much longer to write than if I’d just done it myself. More details in this post: How I use Generative AI to help write blog posts, which is actually the post which falls into this category.

And then, I promptly (albeit subconsciously^[1]) decided using AI to help write blog posts wasn’t really for me, and I’ve never used it this context again, other than to check a couple of technical points in an upcoming post. It’s okay for search-like applications, so long as you make sure to confirm the citations say what it claims they say.

When I was importing my historical posts I made a point of re-reading a lot of my own posts, which ended up including the “AI-generated” posts. They stood out like a sore thumb, with the exception of the “collaborative” one. Honestly, reading them now makes me itch. They quite clearly aren’t written by me, and while I don’t regret doing the experiment or trying out the technology, I do regret publishing them.

For the one that is okay-enough it doesn’t invoke an allergic reaction: was it worth it? Possibly, but probably not. It took hours to put that post together - far more than I would normally spend on something of a similar length^[2]. Part of this could be put down to still being still not fully familiar with the inner-loop of writing with AI-assistance - and thus doing things in a sub-optimal manner - or by having to check technical details, but a damn lot of it was because I had to rewrite so much stuff. I’ve been writing for myself for long enough I have a process I go through, as imperfect as it may be, and bringing a collaborator into that process was a chore.

So, as it stands I am unlikely to be using generative AI tools to write or co-author my blog posts going forward. Of the 3 posts that were written in this way, I don’t feel it’s right to delete them now I’ve referenced here, but I am going to label them as having used AI and point to this post by way of explanation. I’ve seen people add “written by a human” to the end of their blog posts, so it feels only right to do similar for the inverse. If I do ever consciously involve The Machine again, I will make sure to label those posts too.