Wojtek PowiertowskiI read an interesting post by Wojtek Powiertowski in partial response to Khürt Williams’s excellent essay against defining the indie web by its enemies, which had inspired me to write a short post here and a long-form essay on NLJ. I agree that we should advocate for good tech in terms of what makes it good instead of in terms of bad tech (to put it roughly). Here, Mr. Powiertowski tackles AI, which he explains he uses to help him work on aspects of his blog. For those who are more antagonistic toward AI, he argues that technologists should not define themselves by what they oppose or abstain from, whether that is AI or some other tech or trend. I wholeheartedly agree. While I have authored numerous critiques of AI as it is being applied and what it is doing to computer component prices, I would be loath to make what I oppose in tech my tech identity (granted I never thought of myself as a technologist or having a tech idenity, but that aside). Instead, I explain what I am for, digital homes and writing and media by people for people, which not only gives context to my critiques of AI, but also opens the door for allowing for non-offensive AI use cases (or Mr. Powitowski’s own thoughtful article, which he acknowledges at the top had LLM contributions to proofreading and editing). With that being said, in the context of running a writing or media website, I would respectfully dissent from, or at least qualify, Mr. Powiertowski’s assertion regarding AI that:
[T]he question isn’t whether to engage with [AI/LLMs]. The question is how, on your own terms, in service of your own values, building things that matter to you.
While it may be true in a cosmic sense that AI is so infused by tech that one will necessarily interact with the fruits AI in running a website, I will submit that it will always remain possible to cut it out of publishing, design, or similar.
Thank you for the thoughtful engagement with my post, Mr. Ferrell and for the kind framing. I believe we might be closer in agreement than it might appear.
Your qualifier is fair and I agree with it. It will always remain possible to cut AI out of publishing and design, and that’s a legitimate, principled choice. The indie web is built on exactly that kind of intentional decision-making about own tools and process.
Where I’d push back gently is on the implication that AI-assisted media is somehow lesser for being assisted. We’ve seen this pattern before. When photography emerged, painters dismissed it as mechanical reproduction, not real art, because the image wasn’t made by hand. The argument was that the tool did the work, not the person. History proved otherwise. Photography didn’t replace painting, it became its own art form and eventually pushed painting in new directions.
I think AI tools will follow a similar arc. They’ll become ubiquitous and pervasive, disruptive to many forms of human activity, and eventually broadly accepted, not because people stopped caring about craft, but because the definition of craft evolved.
Benjamin Breen wrote a piece today that captures this tension beautifully. He’s a historian and writer who commits to not using AI for his own prose, a choice I respect and understand. But he also describes building fascinating things like a history simulator that blends software, historical research, and narrative in ways that simply weren’t possible before. He acknowledges real loss for certain forms of writing while taking genuine delight in creating entirely new kinds of media with educational and creative value that we couldn’t have imagined a few years ago.
On a personal note, I’m not a writer. I didn’t study writing. I’m a silicon architect and a busy dad of three little kids, and the reality is there just aren’t enough hours in the day. AI tools give me a creative outlet that wouldn’t exist otherwise. They let me code my projects, write about things I care about, and share what I build, all within the hour or so I get in the evening after the kids go to bed, without giving up time with my family. That brings me real joy, and that matters, at the very least to me.
Everything is a choice. I completely understand and respect the choice not to engage with AI, that’s exactly why I put the disclaimer at the top of my post. Some readers will see it and close the page, and I fully respect that choice. But even if I’m writing for a reader of one – myself – these tools still give me that outlet. I don’t think we should disqualify work that was assisted by a tool, any more than we’d disqualify a photograph because a camera made the image. The person behind the lens still chose what to point it at, when to press the shutter, and what story to tell.