I started writing before the generative AI became popular. Even a simple article always took me a lot of time to write. Nowadays, authors can produce¹ and publish high-quality content faster than ever before, with almost zero effort. On the other hand, consumers no longer have to search and browse the Internet for the answers – they can generate curated content on almost any topic just for themselves.

If any answer can be instantly generated by an LLM, what’s the point of writing?

Today’s authors are content providers for AI models, which crawl and digest every bit of the Internet. What happens next with this data is rather simple – it’s mixed with other human and AI-generated content to feed the next iteration of models.

As a consumer, I don’t just read to acquire knowledge. I still use RSS as my primary (though not sole) source of information. What have I subscribed to? Mostly blogs. Written by actual people who produce human-crafted content about topics I care about and I find useful.

What I enjoy most are articles with an emotional and personal touch. Problem-solution articles where I can feel the author’s struggle to find an answer. An opinion about a product or tool from someone’s unique perspective.

I also browse some kind of news aggregator, like Hacker News. But instead of rabbit-holing into the pagination of the feed, I look for interesting articles and I try to learn more about their authors. Who are they? What do they care about? Can their other writings be interesting to me? If so, I subscribe and wait.

The content I enjoy the most has a common denominator. There’s a person behind.

Writing in the era of AI-generated content is more important than ever – but the nature of content should evolve to reflect the new reality.

I used to write articles that described ideas, but they were disconnected from who I am – I was invisible in most of the paragraphs. But since AI can generate arbitrary, expert-sounding content, it’s far more valuable to show up as a real person with real opinions and thoughts. It may be less polished – but more human.

When I started the blog, I had the idea that I’d write for myself – to reconnect with my ideas, solidify my knowledge, and maybe help someone else along the way. But over the years, I realized it shouldn’t be just about sharing knowledge – but about sharing how I arrived at it.

The knowledge is already out there – AI can spit out easily. Even before AI, there was plenty of information on the Internet. What’s more valuable is the path to the conclusion – showing the process.

How to connect the dots.

Just write as if no one is watching – and everything will be fine.