Writing with AI: When to Use It and When to Write Manually

Summary

The essay argues that AI-generated prose often appears polished at first but becomes repetitive, unnatural, and unnecessarily elaborate when read over time. It contrasts two approaches: AI-enriched writing that expands ideas into finished text, and lean raw prompts or notes that preserve the writer’s own insights. The author prefers manual writing for human readers because it retains character and makes the writer’s thinking visible, while noting that AI suggestions can leave him exhausted and make it difficult to complete ideas that do not originate with him. He sees more practical value in using AI for brainstorming, historical research, and organizing his own Markdown notes into book chapters. The article also describes a local-first Obsidian assistant that uses a local model and RAG with DuckDB to work over a personal Markdown vault. It lists several AI writing tools, including ChatGPT, Claude, Lex, Spiral, River Docs, and Wordsmith. Finally, it discusses a Pangram report based on 1,002,627 posts from LinkedIn, Medium, Substack, X/Twitter, and Reddit, while warning that AI-content detection remains unreliable and can produce inconsistent results. The broader concern is that new writers may find it difficult to demonstrate what they can write without AI, weakening readers’ ability to judge authorship and skill.