How I write.
Every essay here carries an AI-assisted mark. This page is what the mark means: which parts of the work are mine, which parts a model does, and which parts a model never touches.
The short version
I dictate, I argue, I decide. A model helps me find the shape of the piece and writes the first draft from a structure we've already agreed. Then I edit every sentence and check every fact. Nothing goes out that I wouldn't defend in person.
That's the whole method. The rest of this page is the same thing in more detail, because "AI-assisted" on its own can mean anything from a spell-check to a ghostwriter, and you should know which one you're reading.
Who does what
in the order it happens- MeThe idea, the argument, the positionNever from a prompt. If I don't have a view, there's no essay.
- MeA first pass, dictated out loudWispr Flow. Rough, long, and in my own words.
- Me + ModelStructure and narrative shapeArgued out between us until the outline holds.
- ModelFirst draft proseFrom the structure we agreed, and only that.
- MeEdits, cuts, final wordingEvery sentence. A bad draft doesn't get published, it gets rewritten.
- MeFacts, numbers, linksChecked by hand against the source.
What never comes from a model
- The position. If I don't already hold a view, there's no essay. A model doesn't get asked what I should think.
- The claims. Numbers, names, dates and quotations come from a source I've read, and I check them by hand.
- The final wording. Every sentence passes through me. If one reads like a model wrote it and I let it through, that's my failure, not the tool's.
- The decision to publish. A draft that doesn't hold gets rewritten or dropped, however finished it looks.
Why say so
I write about building AI systems. It would be strange to hide that I use them to write, and stranger to pretend the process is something it isn't. Most AI-written text on the internet carries no mark at all. I'd rather be exact about how these pages are made and let you weigh them accordingly.
The mark is also a standard I have to meet. Once you've said a model only drafts, you can't let it decide.
Tools
- Wispr Flow
- Dictation. The first pass of every essay is spoken, not typed.
- Claude
- Structure and first-draft prose, from an outline we've argued out.
- This site
- Built the same way: designed and argued by me, coded with Claude Code.