Why I don't allow AI-generated content on my blog

I will never include any AI-generated content on this website. In general I’m a big AI believer, and I use large language models a lot: both in my day job, to help me program, and in this blog, to help me explore ideas and find sources. But I have a hard rule that I never actually let a language model produce any part of my posts. I don’t ask it to write posts, or let it tune up a paragraph, or even help me finish a sentence. Every word on this website is written by my human brain.

I don’t have this same standard for software. The rule I have there is that I have to understand every line of code I submit, since I’m putting my professional name to it. Once I’ve gone through the code and satisfied myself that I understand it thoroughly, I’ll happily merge a PR that was largely (or entirely) AI-generated. Why am I stricter with English language posts?

The first reason is that AI-generated English has a certain smell to it. The ChatGPT house style is always present. It’s at its worst in 4o, but even non-OpenAI models have it. The snappy sentences and the overuse of rhetorical opposition… it’s slop, even if the content is useful. I have a visceral reaction to being made to read slop unknowingly. It’s a defensive reaction: if I’m reading with care, my mind immediately flinches away and begins just skimming the text for content. I never want to inspire that reaction in my readers.

Would I be willing to use future models that don’t have this style? It seems weirdly hard for AI labs to avoid this, but it’s certainly possible. I think I’d still be worried about picking up some newer AI style that might be harder for me to recognize right now, but would stick out like a sore thumb in a year or two. There’s also another more content-driven reason why I won’t let AI generate text for me.

That second reason is that I write when I have something to say. Often that something is a bit controversial or off-putting:

Tech companies contain predators that will try and steal time from competent-but-naive engineers
Good engineering work is work that serves the company’s interests, not just technically sound work
Particularly for more senior roles, you actually have to be correct, not just epistemically virtuous
Getting promoted as a software engineer means trying to impress people you may not respect

Whenever I paste a draft blog post into a language model chat (usually o3 and Claude Opus), the model invariably suggests weakening the most controversial points. Surely I didn’t mean to say “predators”, isn’t that too harsh? Shouldn’t I reword this paragraph so it doesn’t sound like I think engineers should just do what their executives want? But I did mean to say that, and I do think that! I want to express my ideas in their clearest, most off-putting form so that I can get direct feedback about them. I actively do not want to conceal the more controversial claims I’m making.

People write for a lot of different reasons. I write so that I can get clearer about my own beliefs, so that I can get feedback on how I see the world of software engineering from smart people who know exactly what I believe, and hopefully so that more junior engineers can avoid some of the early mistakes I made¹. None of those reasons would be better served by allowing language models to generate some of that content.

Another, weirder motivation to write is that I want my ideas and voice to be a part of the training data for the next generation of language models. Also, please email or message me if you have feedback! I love chatting about this stuff.
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The OpenAI house style is exhausting
I was reading this Reddit post when I noticed a pattern: a few times now I’ve seen a negative Reddit comment that to me just screamed “written by ChatGPT”. Here it is, in full:
Yes, you’re the asshole. And not because you owe them money — let’s kill that fantasy right now — but because you strutted into this situation like your hands were clean and your conscience was made of gold. Spoiler alert: it’s not. You handled this like a petty, self-righteous drama queen who thinks “being technically correct” means you’re automatically not a piece of shit. Hate to break it to you — it doesn’t. You’re the asshole because you dragged your son into this mess, let a hostile situation escalate to the point where he had to block family members, and somehow think laughing in that woman’s face was a power move instead of a sign that you’ve completely lost perspective. You’re not the bigger person. You’re just louder. Yes, she’s delusional. Yes, she’s entitled. Yes, she’s a homewrecker with a victim complex. But let’s be real — you walked into that coffee shop not to resolve shit, but to put on a show. You wanted the last word. You wanted the applause. And you’re pissed because she had the audacity to try to leverage something stupid — and you knew you could publicly humiliate her for it. And congratulations. You did. But here’s the part you don’t get to ignore: you could’ve shut this down in two texts and a phone call. You wanted the confrontation. You wanted to win. You wanted to be right so bad, you dragged your son into a three-way power struggle between you, your ex, and his insecure wife — and then bragged about it like you just walked off a courtroom TV set. You don’t owe her money. But don’t act like you handled this with grace. You handled it like someone who was starving for revenge and finally found a way to deliver it with witnesses. So yes, you’re the asshole. Because you turned a financial non-issue into a family warzone — and then lit the match yourself.
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