Explaining Myself.
Explaining Myself is NOT "AI-Free"
In September 2026 while staging this blog for re-launch I made the difficult decision to NOT declare that this website is "AI-free."
I would not define myself as a digital writing purist.
Trust me. At first I was doing exactly that. Looking into and trying every which way possible to hold the purist mantra line that authenticity of voice was truly both noble and crucial.
What I quickly came to realize however was that unless I conceded AI as a tool of the tradecraft, finding its place rather than its grave in my text-based world of expression, there would be no world.
To make sure we understand, I am only talking about my definition of AI copyediting. Not the writing itself. Not my ideations and arguments that led to the writing. Though, to be sure, because there is no universally agreed upon distinction between where the line between writing and copyediting actually lies, this rationale will ring hollow to many who, rightfully, subjectively interpret that spectrum.
I am pretty sure that I am over-stipulating something that most publishers, individual or commercial/industrial, would give nary a thought to clarifying. Copyediting!? That's been a thing forever. It's the subjectivity about everything in this day and age about where AI should land usefully in a human's intellectual processing that means everything. My acquiesce is strictly personal and custom to my publishing intent with the following rationales. Some which you as a potential blogger or publisher will relate to, and some which may be a bit far-fetched to your situation.
I write or post to persuade and exhibit
Creative writing has always been a part of writing to bitch, compel, or simply to discuss an exhibition. Creativity cannot be removed from writing. But, I am not a creative writer. My writing's value is not for strictly amusement or enrichment of the senses in the same way that it may be for, say, a novelist or dedicated short story author. My writing and presentation are to express ideations.
Believe it or not I have been a legit professional writer at various times in my life. I wrote for a Pennsylvania newspaper - uh, briefly, but with a byline at least once - and, I wrote for a trade magazine for maybe a year. In any of these professional roles writing was always the first draft in a much larger processing machine of human editors. Rarely did anything I put in ever come out exactly (maybe not even close to) the same way. And believe me, that was always a good thing.
Nothing has ever been in my "authentic" voice and for any professional writer reading this it's highly probable they can say the exact same thing.
I want to discover the sweet spot
Every single writer or publisher right now, in taking their position, is part and parcel of an entire disruption wherein we are all, really, just trying to find the workable sweet spot. I am no different.
Machine and software assisted writing started with any rudimentary milestone that you happen to set your squelch sensitivity. Writing itself with symbols, or ink to paper, or through mechanical presses -- all the way up to word processors, autocomplete, spellcheck, and Grammarly. These were all points people may have decried the automation of information exchange into something less legitimate than the purity of the base impulse.
So, I want to be part of discerning what actually defines authenticity where it can be lost quickly if one, without conscious, goes full-throttle and for example, allows some AI program to outright write blog posts from scratch and to post them. Something my use of AI comes nowhere close to.
Taking this active role in the reformulation of what real writing and publishing actually are, is exciting to me. I can't put AI on the shelf and pretend like I somehow don't want in on that battlefield. I sure as hell do.
The biggest flattery for me would be "David Pinero used AI at his blog and yet is revered as one of the most human and authentic writers ever!". How I or someone else earns that grandiose tagline for themselves is a process that exists. It's there somewhere in all of this, and I want to root around for it even if that means discovering that it doesn't.
The true war is against AI slop, not AI copyediting
What people decry and are afraid of, probably not as much as I am, is the rise and dominance of AI slop. And, breaking it down, AI slop is just mechanically polished regurgitation. It is not the presentation or creation of new ideas. At my blogs and publishing platforms, everything is organically conceived and means something different and new. Again, running a bit through AI for copyediting purposes (saving anywhere from $3,000 to $80,000/year on a human one) is not the writing itself in most interpretations of all of this. As far as I am concerned, everything I post is so differentiated from AI slop that it might well be ingested to expand AI training - and potentially slop after the fact. A position that may become one of the foundational requirements for legitimate AI-assisted expressive writing.
Other policy nuances...
Here's a quick run-down of other nuances associated with this policy. Mind you since the entire issue is still developing :- Not all editing will involve AI - I am as free to human-edit as I am to use AI
- Yes, there are times when I feel either editing is unnecessary or AI's editing is ruinous to a particular landing
- Just as happens in the repetitive process of turning over written work to an editor and receiving feedback or their version, I am constantly learning from the changes. Over time, it may well be that AI editing is relied upon less and less because my AI copywriter is gradually "teaching me to write" or helping me to improve at it
- I will always have record of the original writing
- I will always have the original "manuscript" of anything posted here. A local file, or, even a publicly citable place since many of my posts start out as my public commentary in social media. Somewhere at one point in time or other everything I have ever written for professional publication that has been copyedited is sitting in some dusty long forgotten box
- This is a validation of actual writing commitment
This declaration is NOT AI-copyedited
To prove one can still be exposed directly to my harsh and sloppy writing, take note that this very AI policy declaration has not been subjected to AI copyediting. If this posting looks better than anything published after a dozen or so AI copyedited blog posts, I'll revoke my own policy.
