Yes, Writing Without AI is Still A Worthwhile Thing to Do
- Stephanie Morillo
- Mar 28
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 29
Six years ago, when I released my ebook The Developer’s Guide to Content Creation, I never predicted that the proliferation of AI tools would challenge a software developer’s writing practice. But less than three years after I published it, ChatGPT was released. Many writing tools have AI native capabilities. The rest is history.
AI has helped people improve their writing in tangible ways: writing can go from ideation to first draft in quickly, long-winded posts can be made more concise, beginner writers and multilingual writers can pen content more confidently. I have a colleague who has used AI in the most ingenious ways, teaching it to write in their style and creating blog posts in depth by teaching AI to interview it. I love these applications of AI in writing and hope they continue.
And then, rather unfortunately, there’s the slop. The prompt-to-copy-paste-without-fact-checking pipeline. The almost total collapse of the idea to finish product path that makes quality control an afterthought.
In my current line of work, I’ve noticed an interesting trend among developers, especially those in search of answers to their questions or looking for fresh content. There is a very sizeable group who, while perfectly fine with utilizing AI to optimize work, do not respond well to consuming AI-generated content made by peers.
This is a group that values a writer’s technical acumen, accuracy, and personal writing style. Above all, they value learning from their peers and fellow practitioners. Trust is lost when this audience engages with a piece of content riddled with the unmistakable patterns that scream: “AI slop!” This is not an audience that is satisfied with solutions that sound plausible. Because of the precision needed to accomplish tasks, developers are discerning and they want receipts; how does a thing work? Can you show me the steps so I can replicate? Can you share code snippets or screenshots so I understand expected behavior?
Content is merely a vehicle for learning from peers. The person, their knowledge, and their experience matter more than a perfectly adequate piece of content concerned more with form than function. In the greater scheme of things, how polished a piece of content sounds matters less to audiences than what someone actually thinks about a topic. AI slop is proving the axiom “not everything that glitters is gold” rings true.
This is to say that writing is a skill and one always worth developing. It truly is less about beautiful prose for its own sake; it is a mechanism for processing information and synthesizing our thoughts. We must give ourselves permission to write badly and use writing as a mode of learning.
But the appeal of the writing shortcut that AI promises can be string, because it can also be used to mask one’s lack of knowledge around a topic. Why do the research when AI can both find the solution and change the wording to make it appear original? So what if it simply make things up? It sounds good! But to those writers: you’re doing yourselves, and others, a great disservice. First, you deny yourself the opportunity to go learn something and write about it to cement your own knowledge. You deny yourself the opportunity to contribute to a body of knowledge around a topic. And you deny others the opportunity to find content that will help them increase their own knowledge or solve known problems. We all lose; there is no such thing as a free lunch.
I do believe that there are responsible ways of using AI in our writing, ways that do not erode trust or reduce friction so much that we aren’t doing much of the thinking or writing anymore. I use AI all day, every day at work; it has helped me in countless ways, saving time, perfecting visuals, summarizing long briefs, automating processes, conveying important data in a narrative way, bringing songs I’ve written to life, even helping me learn to paint. But I’ve accepted that writing is a long process, one that I once staked my career on. In a world with a lot more noise than the one I produced The Developer’s Guide to Content Creation, I value long-form writing more than ever. Friction isn’t always a bad thing. And writing helps me figure out what it is I actually care about.
The use cases for AI increase by the day, and with it, so do the decisions we must make about how to apply it in our work, including our writing. As writers, we should commit as much of ourselves to our practice as we can, wherever we can. Through the written word we communicate what we think and why we should be trusted. Find one aspect of your practice that remains yours. It may take longer to get your ideas out. But remember: what’s important is what you learned, and what you think. That’s the type of content we want to read.
(In keeping with the blogging process I've had for over twenty years, I have made the decision not to use AI in my blogging practice whatsoever. That means I do not leverage AI for research, drafting, editing, nor creating images. I have not and will not use my content to train LLM models. Everything you've read on this site to date has been created without AI.)
I'm excited to share that The Developer's Guide to Content Creation is once again available for a limited time only. Click the link below to learn more about the book.
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