I came across Ben Werdmuller’s March 27 notable links of the week through Minifeed. One part of his commentary on an NBC article titled AI is changing the style and substance of human writing, study finds (talk about a “yikes” headline) caught my attention for indirectly touching on a topic of recent interest here. Mr. Werdmuller wrote that he, like me, does not make use of AI in writing. Regarding others, he stated that he is not a fan of using AI to produce a “first draft” before applying human edits. That points at a distinction I made a few days ago in Re; On AI in response to: A Positive Technologist Identity (2/4). While I do not use AI at any stage of my online writing work, I distinguished between using AI tools to edit and proofread a human-drafted article and editing and proofreading an AI generated article. Setting the broader philosophical debate aside, the former has a better chance of being worth reading than the latter.
AI Editing vs Editing AI
Ben Werdmuller (werd.io)For the record, my posts aren’t written or conceived with an LLM, although I know an increasing number of people who use one to write a first draft and then edit. I’m not a fan. The whole point of the web — its beauty — is that it’s unrelentingly human and diverse. There are lots of ways in which AI is eating away at that core (fewer search engine referrals, more automated content, more spam), but this is the most insidious: through people who believe they are writing the piece themselves but are actually handing over their creativity to the model.