Has AI taken away the joy of writing?

Today we have a different type of post. Rather than something technical, I’m venting, or ranting, a bit. Maybe I’ve already become the Simpsons “Old man yells at cloud” meme.

The joy of writing#Link to section: The joy of writing

I haven’t been writing a lot for the past year. Not because there aren’t new topics, or because I’ve stopped finding interesting problems to write about. Oh, I have plenty of these 😁

The problem for me, and I’m sure that it’s the same for other people, is that once I start drafting something I end up thinking: is any of this worth doing anymore?

Why spend time writing anything when everybody can go and ask one of the AI chatbots we all know, and get exactly the answer they need?

I’ve always enjoyed writing. I started my blog as a way to help myself in the future, self-documentation. And it ended up helping many other people.

I also enjoy the process that leads to the article itself. Investigating and learning about a new feature, debugging an issue or building something is the fun part for me. It’s like a game.

Don’t get me wrong, I obviously also use AI. All day, every day. I used it to move this blog from WordPress to Astro. I will use it to spellcheck this!

It’s the most useful tool I’ve ever had. But it’s so inhumanly efficient that it’s taking the fun away from some things.

What’s the point in writing anything now?#Link to section: What’s the point in writing anything now?

This is what goes through my mind when I finish that first draft.

What’s the point if people can ask an LLM a specific question, and get the exact answer without having to go through a wall of text?

And as much as I enjoy writing, it also requires time and effort. And this time is usually my free time, something I started prioritizing and protecting A LOT some years ago.

For me this has sucked away the energy I need to put in the work to write something.

Yes, I get the irony. I’m using plenty of tools that were trained the exact way I’m criticising.

Believe me when I say I’ve spent hours, days, weeks, and probably months, writing all the posts and guides of this site.

What’s the point if I can take all of this content, feed it to Claude/ChatGPT/Copilot, so it learns my voice and tone and can produce something 95% me, just by telling it what to write about?

Likewise, what’s the point of reading long articles if I can just copy-paste them and ask for a TL;DR?

The creative dichotomy#Link to section: The creative dichotomy

I’ve always considered the work developers do is from a creative nature. Yes, it’s definitely not the same as artistic creation, but it’s a different kind of creativity.

As a developer I find it very natural to use AI tools to help me at work. We’ve been copying and pasting from the internet for years, and nobody cared about that.

But I loathe other kinds of creativity where most of the work is done by an AI, because there the person behind that work is the point!

What I won’t do is just go and tell Claude “hey look at the roadmap and write something”. When I wrote my book, I consciously avoided using ChatGPT because I’m VERY lazy and would’ve ended up letting it do all the work.

Everything looks the same!!!#Link to section: Everything looks the same!!!

Another awful consequence is the growing trend of everything looking the same.

And I’m not even talking about shitposts on LinkedIn.

AI-generated images, posters, flyers. All have the same style, same fonts, same look. All look equally ugly, dull and lifeless.

Worst of all? People have embraced it and settled for this!

And again, I’m guilty here too. I’ve had plenty of slides created using Cowork. And my slides and everybody else’s slides looked the same, of course!

Please, create things#Link to section: Please, create things

I beg you, please, keep writing, keep drawing, keep painting, keep composing and playing music. Please.

I don’t want to read a book from Haruki MurAIkami, or BrAIndon Sanderson. I still need them to write books and put a piece of their soul there. Damn, I’d even be at peace if Patrick Rothfuss never published the third book of The Kingkiller Chronicle if it means nobody hands the draft to an AI to finish it.

I don’t want to listen to AI-generated music, or watch movies or shows packed with AI-generated content.

I can be working all day with AI tools, but at the end of the day I still need to get my dose of humanity.

So here’s the thing. I’ll try to keep writing, even if nobody reads it. It makes me happy, it gives me peace. When everything has to be short, have an immediate impact, and be able to be done while doing 27 other things, writing is one of the things I can actually keep my focus on while doing it. The other one would be playing World of Warcraft.

Time to work on those drafts…