Writing
This article was un-hanced by AI
My own version, written by hand. No AI. (The machine's effort is in the next tab.)
Permit me to begin this article with a sigh. Not a melancholy sigh though, you understand. No, it’s a big, shoulders up to ears, chest full of air, proper gust of wind thoughtful sigh. Frankly, I’m thankful to be here. Thankful AI hasn’t killed me or my job off yet. Thankful that it’s a lovely Saturday July morning in my garden, with a lovely fresh cup of tea that I’ve had to make twice because the milk had curdled in the fridge, and I’d poured that into my first cup.
Stay positive Craig.
I’m sighing because I sigh every day now. AI (Claude is my favoured one, although I do dabble in ChatGPT now and again) continues to make my professional life much easier every single day, but my artistic life harder1. I often won’t build things any longer, I’ll prompt. And just as I wrote that line I bashed my leg on the wobbly table and spilled my tea everywhere. Looks like I’m making my third cup of tea today.
Can you ask Craig to stay positive whilst he writes his article? Find me the 10 most popular articles about happiness.
I hasten to say it, but: ‘game-changer’
For the sake of argument and our sanity this morning, let’s just put aside all that stuff about these AI autocrats burning rainforests, how these digital despots are framing themselves as religious zealots, and how governments around the world are using AI oligarchs as political footballs.
Aside from that, AI has changed my life. In probably 6 short months, they’ve changed everything I knew about how to design and build websites, run a business, marketing, and digital products. They’ve changed everything I knew about the expanse of knowledge available to me2, let alone the expanse of skill. If I want to make something now, the limit is my imagination, not my skill level. They’re changing everything I thought I knew about creation itself. If you’re asking Claude to make it for you, is it truly yours? Or are you in some symbiotic relationship with a creative arbiter, who’s forever growing more powerful, slowly removing your role from the equation with each new release of a language model?
By the way, these Diplomat teabags from Aldi taste a bit weird. Sort of like I’ve asked ChatGPT to make me the taste of a teabag, and then make me a cup of tea with it. Synthetic in some way. Based on a distant memory of the real thing.
Can you ask Craig to tone down the negativity in this article. I’m worried it’ll come across as a bit, well, negative.
A weary wary relationship
This isn’t the first time it’s happened. New technology always makes the creative process uncertain, a bit like walking on loose floorboards. It happened to graphic designers. Design used to be a purely manual process: draw on a piece of paper, ship it to your client, get it back, change it, get it approved by your client, ship it to the repro house so they could reproduce your artwork at scale.
Then the Mac computer came around and largely digitised the entire process. Designers had a new tool, but a wary relationship with it. Will it help me? Will it make me better, or worse? Will it take my job?
And now I sit here, sighing thoughtfully and pondering the same.
But I think it’s the wrong question to ask.
Can we implement a second and third act into this article? It’s getting boring.
The second act turning point
A true creative can turn anything into a creative tool3. Take this website, for example. I would never have built my personal website if I had to do it myself. Lord knows, I’ve tried my damnedest. I’m easily into double-figures with the pursuit: the idea of a ‘creative catalogue’. Everything I’ve ever done, stored in one website, a permanent web archive.
The kind of project, to be honest, I could never be arsed with. Who has the time to write case studies, find old work, lay it all out in HTML, upload it, keep doing it, blah blah blah? Nobody.
But this is where AI comes in. You can have a conversation with it. I just have to tell it what project to grab, where it is, when I did it, and if it links to anything else. AI does the rest of the work.
Un-hance, not enhance
However, I didn’t just want to ask AI to write it all for me. The rules of the new website are that everything must be prompted (apart from these articles, these are my words all written). I wanted to see if I could get AI to write like me, at least the short summaries of projects and things that already existed.
But I wanted to make it…shit. Un-hance if you like, rather than enhance. So I promoted Claude to be, well, shit. Or at least not too perfect. By the way, I publish my full voice.md on my website.
Even now, I’m still tweaking it. I find it does a just ‘fine’ job for short descriptions and talking about things that already exist, but when I’m writing articles like this, it leaves a lot to be desired. It’s still too rule-bound and not grounded in experiences.
It’d never write an article about AI and spilling my tea on a Saturday morning, would it?
The rousing third act
For all the AI naysaying out there, I’m finding it genuinely revolutionary. I don’t say those words lightly. It’s allowed me to offload the unenjoyable bits that don’t matter (writing descriptions, summarising things, pulling together old websites, finding old things), to focus on the big creative things that do matter.
I would never have built a ‘personal search engine’ like this with all its wacky ideas (I’ll leave you to find them yourself) if I had to do it all by myself. Un-hancing it with AI has me more creatively excited to build a personal website than I’ve been in 20 years, or probably forever.
I’m still sat here, cautiously side-eying AI every time I ask it to help me do something. But I’m more optimistic and more creatively proactive and productive than I have been for years.
I’m a lazy bastard. We may as well start there.
Left to my own devices I’d never build a personal website. I’ve started one about ten times. Probably more. There’s a folder on here somewhere full of the half-finished ones, all abandoned at roughly the same spot. The spot where it stops being fun and starts being a job.
But here you are, on one. It got built.
It got built because of AI. I’ve spent the last year properly into it, and this is the first idea I’ve had in ages that got finished instead of binned.
Not the way you’d think, mind.
I didn’t use it to make the site easy. I used it to make it worse. On purpose.
I’ve spent months training the thing to be deliberately shit on here. The About page is a time machine: pick any year back to 1988 and the whole page rebuilds itself as the web of that year. Every project I’ve made is dressed up as some old website. There’s a Nokia 3310 you have to read a page through. The podcasts open up like Winamp.
I’m using AI to un-hance things. Not enhance. Un-hance.
I know it’s not a word. Doesn’t matter. The point is you aim it at something unexpected instead of something tidy.
And that’s where I reckon everyone’s going wrong. Most people are using it to look normal. Or because they’re lazy. Or because they can’t spell. So the whole internet’s filling up with the same beige, sounds-about-right stuff, and we’re all supposed to call that progress.
Right. Wanky bit incoming. I’m a designer. An ideas person. And somewhere under all that (Christ, listen to me) I think I’m an artist. There. Said it.
So I wasn’t going to take the most interesting thing to turn up in years and use it to knock out another tidy little personal site for the pile. I wanted to use it like I use everything else I make stuff with. Aim it somewhere odd. See what falls out.
And used like that, I can’t tell you how it’s any different to any other tool I’ve ever had. It’s a thing you make stuff with. Always has been.
There’s a big row going on about all this in the creative world right now. Everyone’s either terrified of it or won’t shut up about how brilliant it is. I didn’t fancy picking a side. I just wanted to take it somewhere stupid and see what happened.
Liking it so far.
P.S.
I’ve taken this further than you’d guess, if I’m honest. The whole site is prompted. The design, the words, all of it. This too. I don’t sit and write a full article start to finish anymore.
Before you reach for the “ah, it’s AI slop” button: the prompt isn’t “write us a shit article about AI”. The prompt’s about as long as the article. The jokes, the links, the bits I actually mean, they’re all mine. I just don’t type the final draft out myself.
Don’t believe me? Go on. Other tabs.
The actual prompt I gave the AI for this one. Lowercase, typos, build instructions and all. This is the bit that's "writing" now.
for this article, I want you to make a tab switcher at the top of it. one will be my original prompt, with everything I say in this message. the other one (default tab) will be the article youre going to write for me.
the gist is this. I’m a lazy bastard, would never build my own personal website. lordy, I’ve tried. I think I must be in the double figures for one now. but until I’ve heavily gotten into AI over the last year, I think this is the thing that’s made it happen.
but not in the way you think. I’ve trained my AI so heavily to be shit on this website. random shit themes. winamp style themed for podcasts. even a Nokia 3310 on this page over here (pick a page to implement it on).
I’m using AI to un-hance things, not enhance.
in other words, as a creative tool to achieve an unexpected output.
the thing is that’s the mistake most people are making. they’re using AI to try and look normal. they’re using AI because they’re lazy. they’re using AI because they can’t spell.
I’m a designer and an ideas person at heart. at my very core, and I’ll sound like a wanker for saying this, I’m an artist.
so I wanted to see if I could use AI as a creative tool, not just to make yet another shitty website and then throw it on the internet.
and when we’re using AI like this, I don’t see it as being any different form any other creative tool.
AI is splitting opinions heavily right now in the creative industries. but I thought it’d be interesting. to take AI ad-absurdum and see what happens.
liking it so far.
ps I also want to reveal how far I’ve gone with this website to write it with AI. everything is prompted, from design to words. I never write a full article myself, just like this one. but the prompt isn’t just ‘write me a shitty AI article’ the prompt is as long as the article will end up being.
and queue up another article idea there, about how creativity is turning from making things to figuring out how to train things then write a good prompt
(then, after reading the first draft:)
I think we need to work on the article voice. it still feels way too AI. I don’t want any obvious signs in it it’s been written by AI. revisit the voice patterns if you need to. add more comments if you need to. add this prompt as an extra bit of prompt to he bottom of the prompt tab
(and again, after that:)
stop overusing em dashes as well it’s such an obvious tell. add this to the prompt tab too.
in fact why is AI so obsessed with em dashes? add this to prompt tab on article
add a third tab which will have my full article in it that I 100% write myself. it’ll be the default article that appears. add this also to he prompt tab on the article.