It's still worth blogging in the age of AI

Writing is thinking. So is drawing.

To think clearly, come up with new ideas, make and truly understand things, we need to put marks on the blank page ourselves, and not just repeat what teachers or textbooks tell us like the majority of students Richard Feynman had during his time in Brazil — https://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education

LLMs/AIs are useful to help us get farther, faster, like witty, skilled, intelligent friends who sometimes take too many magic mushrooms during conversations.

Forgetting about our own agency and individuality is bad for us, and dangerous for society.

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will.” —Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” ―Primo Levi, If This is A Man

To create and be free like an animal outside a cage, ask, write, and draw your own questions. Look, and find out for yourself, rather than blindly believing what others tell you.

Two useful books:

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards https://archive.org/details/DRAWINGONTHERIGHTSIDEOFTHEBRAINH...

The Hand - How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture by Frank R. Wilson https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/191866/the-hand-by-...

It really fascinates me how the "other" clientele of HN operates. The world of networking, marketing yourself, creating a resume of sorts through your blogging. I'm just some dude with a decent job occasionally writing blog posts because it amuses me. I'd be pleasantly surprised if a dozen people read them before I die. AI doesn't really factor into the calculus of whether or not I want to continue doing it at all.

> You're building up a portfolio of writing about topics that interest you.

This reason resonates with me immensely.

You're not just writing about what you've figured out, sometimes you're actually deepening your understanding as you write! Writing is the thinking process: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32628196

I have been writing every day at my blog for three years now, and it's been very rewarding for me to figure out what I actually care about and seeing patterns.

I like thinking about it like a bunch of skateboarders lugging the video camera around to capture the moment. (They did this before social media!)

P.S., You may also enjoy the similar sentiment in this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42992159

I like writing too. Funnily enough, the age of LLMs makes this even better. I wrote a little MCP server (this is trivial with Claude) that interfaces with my blog so it can full-text search for articles and look up articles and look at recent articles and stuff like that and it is pretty good at finding references in what I've written to thoughts I've had. It's a bit trigger-happy when looking up my blog posts (I have to put more in the assistant prompt in the Claude app to get it to stop defaulting there).

The other thing that's nice is that LLMs make the process of writing better. When I cite stuff I can just screenshot the website and ask ChatGPT to write the citation and then check it. Things like that are more painful to write than to check and LLMs shine there.

I think that as more people offload understanding to LLMs, being able to deeply understand a topic will make you stand out more and more. Doing things and explaining them are two of the best ways to get that deep understanding.

When I write about a technical topic, I open a new markdown doc and just go. You quickly run up against the limits of your own understanding, which is a valuable exercise.

I started blogging to record the history of projects I've worked on (e.g. Microsoft Band https://meanderingthoughts.hashnode.dev/history-of-microsoft... Launching HBO Max https://meanderingthoughts.hashnode.dev/only-300-software-en...) but, perhaps not surprisingly, my only "successful" article has been the one controversial article I wrote cautioning against using SSR for everything.

That said I believe documenting history is important so I'll keep sporadically writing down notable events I've been involved in!

I also blog a fair bit about AI, and there is no hope getting views there without playing the game.

I wonder if there is a practical test of this question? Are there any moderately successful blogs written purely by an LLM with a human just doing the prompts.

As far as I know there aren't any but I look forward to being corrected

For me, the #1 reason I don't blog more, especially about tech topics, is that they take too long. Maybe you can bang out a useful blog post in 20 minutes. For me it's more like 4 to 8 hours.

I have to make samples. Since I do mostly web tech I want the samples to actually work, no "here's some code, trust me". I also need diagrams. And, I have to proofread since I'm terrible at getting it right in one or even 5 checks. I write once, add samples, write some more, add images, write some more. Every time I write I add errors, so it always takes multiple passes.

I think there is a more important reason to blog besides the 3 reasons listed: to force yourself to slow down, organize your thoughts, fill in the holes, and articulate your points.

"Writing is understanding."

I checked out his About page just because he mentioned that only 1% do it. For my writing, the observation that almost everyone moves on is certainly true. But those few who reached out sometimes become new friends. I've never met any of them in person though. It's like a group of friends for whom the connection is that they all read something that I wrote. Also, funny to now see that when doing research I've gotten AI's citing my own past posts as sources. Maybe this means I need to reread my own writing.

The main reason I blog is because I work (or am starting out working in) academia and therefore I have to write papers. To write academic papers you have to write terribly, using passive voice whenever possible.

I blog so that I know I am still capable of writing coherently, rather than in horrible academic language.

There is also the gwern point of "You should write so that your voice is present in the future LLM": https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PQaZiATafCh7n5Luf/gwern-s-sh...