“In general, there is no set of observations conceivable which can give us enough information about the past of a system to give us complete information as to its future.”
— Norbert Weiner, Cybernetics
I’ve thought about using AI to write some of these newsletters. I’ll admit it, it crossed my mind.
I wouldn’t, and I haven’t, but I did think about how I would do it.
It would be so easy. Just export all my past posts, randomly shuffle them or filter them by topic, hand them over to Gemini (or dump them into Claude Cowork) and say, “Write me a post, in my style, about xyz topic.”
It would churn out something serviceable in a few seconds, I’d give it a cursory edit, and then, boom, done.
So why don’t I? Why do I instead sit down on my computer, review my notes and quotes from the books I’ve read, ponder my recent consulting experiences, think about what I need to hear or you do, and painstakingly type out a message?
Because what we both need is something new. Something that hasn’t been written before, something that hasn’t been pre-chewed before by an LLM.
The whole point of reading is to reinforce or carve new pathways in the mind, and the whole point of writing is to target those pathways with enough novelty that that process can occur.
I’ve said it before, I use AI all the time. I’ve built a few AI-powered software products lately that are blowing my mind and changing how I live and work. My subscriptions to model providers and my API fees are... substantial.
But that’s just taught me, over and over again, that when you need something new you’ve got to do it yourself.
When you need something real, and coherently connected to the physical world, you’ve got to make it yourself.
And when you want to provide value in your content, when you want to deliver value by telling your audience something they didn’t know before but need to, you’ve got to write it yourself.
Otherwise, we’re just summoning ghosts of past content, we’re just rehashing and re-chewing what’s already been consumed before.
And no amount of past knowledge or content is enough to figure out what should come next.
For my content, only I can do that.
For yours, only you.
So generate some novel tokens, create some content only you can create.
And you’ll find people asking you, instead of ChatGPT.
Because, remember, if an LLM can write it for you, can do it for you, can deliver it for you...
What is it, exactly, that you do?
Reply to this email to tell me what you think, or ask any questions!
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