'AI' Aided Writing
I confess: My use of LLMs1 has been sparse, and extremely focused. I have avoided using them for anything I felt I could do well enough myself, and particularly avoided using them for writing. I like writing. I like feeling authentic, however rambly I may be. I felt that using an LLM would impact that authenticity; if it wasn’t my words, from my brain, could I post them?
What I hadn’t considered is that aid comes in many forms. I know my flaws:
- I tend to be verbose
- I like analogies and metaphors
- I rarely find time for a 2nd draft
Prompted by sensible people, it occurred to me: what if I used an LLM as an editor, rather than a ghost writer?
I’d just written a new post yesterday, so I threw the content at Claude. You can read the full transcript here.
Trepidation awaited. Would it be helpful? What would it say about my writing? Was I actually a lot worse with words than I thought I was?
Unsurprisingly, Claude by default is a remorseless flatterer. It Criticism Sandwiched me and gave lots of encouragement. While this was nice to hear