Blogging in the age of AI
Hi there! 👋
It's been a few weeks since the last update, and things are flowing quite smoothly. I've been working on preparing content for the next few months, so I can take some time off during the summer. The flow of content will, however, continue uninterrupted, so you can expect new articles every week, albeit fewer than in previous months.
This time around, there's little to focus on, so I'll address one of the elephants in the room: AI and how it fits into my writing!
As you're well aware by now, AI is pretty much everywhere. Lots of content on the internet is AI generated and it feels kinda wrong and robotic most of the time. I'm sure we've all had that moment where we read an article and thought "this is just AI generated slop". I know I have, and I don't want to be part of that problem. Yet, it's impossible to ignore the fact that AI tools are just great when used as tools, not as a replacement for human creativity.
Apart from writing content, AI has also become one of the most common ways people consume content. A lot of people nowadays just prompt an LLM, wait for it to find some answers and digest them, reading the summary, not the long form content. I get that this is a great shortcut, but sometimes you want to enjoy the journey, not just the destination. I know I do, and I hope you do too.
This shift in our collective behavior has made me realize how irrelevant SEO is becoming in some ways. This is one of the reasons why I dropped Google Analytics and Google Search Console from the site. Without metrics, it's more fun pursuing my passions and not worrying about bean counters, writing what I like and what I hope others may enjoy, too.
What does this mean for the future, then? Well, I'm still writing content for humans, in fact even more than ever before. If AI can also pick it up and present it in a way you can digest, all the better. But, with AI, comes a fundamental shift in how I write content. Instead of avoiding AI or vilifying it, I'd rather embrace the technology and use it to my advantage to write more often, better, and faster.
Does this mean that I'll use AI to generate slop? No, not at all. No content on the website will be fully AI generated, I will keep editing and refining it, but I'll use AI to assist me in the process, to help me brainstorm ideas, to help me find the right words, to help me write better content.
And that's pretty much all I wanted to say this time around. I hope you enjoy your summer and the content I've got lined up for it. I'll drop by in a few weeks or a couple of months, who knows? Cheers! 🍻
