“What is written without effort is read without pleasure.”
Samuel Johnson (English writer, poet and essayist, 1709–1784)
I don’t use AI to write or edit anything. Writing and editing involves thinking, and I have spent several decades charging people for my thinking, judgment and intuition. When you commission me to write for you, you’re paying for this expertise, not my ability to type.
Why would I outsource the most valuable part of my service – the one people choose me and pay me for – to a machine?
And from your point of view, if I can’t be bothered to write it myself, why should you be bothered to read it?
Why I don't use AI to write and edit
Trust and transparency
You pay me for my expertise. If I used AI and did not tell you, it would be a breach of the trust you have placed in me. And AI doesn’t care – if it gets something wrong, it’s up to you/me to work that out for ourselves.
Accountability
If you publish copy I have written, or accept edits I have made, you are legally responsible for it. If I incorporate factual inaccuracies which later create a problem for your business, you would probably sue me.
I have professional indemnity insurance to cover me for this, but the damage to your and my reputation would already have been done. It’s in my interests to make sure that the information I incorporate into my copy or editing holds up, and not just take AI’s word for it.
Environmental vandalism
I understand that AI can have incredible benefits in areas like medical diagnostics and drug development.
However, AI datacentres use an incredible amount of energy and water (around six times as much as the whole of Denmark). I’m not a research scientist, and in a world where a quarter of the global population lacks access to clean water, I find it hard to justify inadvertently consuming more than I need to.
IP and data infringement
The data that AI is trained on is scraped from the internet without the permission of its creators – whether they’re artists, authors, musicians or companies promoting their services online. Their IP is infringed by AI without accreditation or compensation.
It's a waste of a brain
There’s plenty of research to show that relying on AI makes people lazy, less curious and less patient, and can have a real cognitive impact on the brain. I can’t explain it any better than this LinkedIn post.
What I use AI for
It’s hard to avoid AI totally, especially when you rely so much on the internet to do your job. My position is similar to the one I take when travelling: I avoid going by air and try and take a more sustainable alternative where possible, especially if it’s a holiday and I’m on my own time. But if I was going from the UK to Canada, or needed to be in Paris in the morning and Rome in the afternoon, I would fly.
I occasionally use AI for desk research, when I need a very specific answer to a question such as:
- What was the change in value of XYZ investment fund between 1980 and 2010?
- Which are the most successful companies in the hydraulic pumps market?
- What are the key arguments for and against young people going to university in the UK?
I type the question into Google and check the Gemini AI results that appear at the top of page one. (It’s almost impossible to turn these off when searching on Google. I’m experimenting with search engines that don’t use AI, but – like flying – sometimes it takes you where you need to be a lot faster. I know, I am a bit of a hypocrite.)
That normally produces a reasonably credible answer which I can then go into more deeply. I’ll follow the links provided to see if the answer holds up. If it doesn’t, I search again using established news websites, directories or company sites – whichever is most appropriate and isn’t known for producing biased or incorrect information.
Checking is vital: AI routinely hallucinates rather than admit it doesn’t know the answer.
As for Chat GPT: using it instead of Google for an online enquiry uses ten times as much electricity, so I rarely resort to it.
I use the AI embedded in apps like Google Meet to transcribe interviews and meetings. This helps me remember the key action points from a conversation and also ensures that if I am directly quoting someone, I can do so accurately and don’t have to rely on my scribbled handwriting.
I can’t think of anything else I would use AI for. I am not a writer who boasts about speed or volume of words. So writing faster or producing more content are not selling points for me, and I believe generative AI has devastating implications for people’s ability to create and think for themselves.
I am not a Luddite, but until AI can offer a measurable benefit to my writing or editing, I’ll take a pass.
Created August 2026