Last updated: October 2026
I believe AI belongs in the writing process the same way a spell checker or a good editor does: as an assistant that sharpens a human voice, never as a substitute for one. This page is my honest account of where the line sits for me.
Why I use it at all
English is not my first language. I read a great deal of it, but the grammar still trips me up: verb tenses, comma placement, and word choice are a constant low-level effort. Hiring a professional copy editor for what is essentially a hobby would be absurd. So I let AI do what a copy editor would: catch awkward phrasing, fix the grammar, and help the prose read cleanly.
The thinking, the structure, and the technical substance are always mine. I write the draft first. The model only ever works on text I have already written.
How it actually works here
Prose. For copy editing, I use local models that run on my own hardware, primarily Mistral and Gemma. Nothing I draft is sent to a third party for that step.
Code in articles. The playbooks, configurations, and scripts in my articles are written by me and run on my own systems before they are published. Where a snippet has been shortened or anonymised for the article, I say so.
This website. For the frontend of this blog, the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, I also use larger “frontier” models to build and refine templates and styling. That is engineering work, and I treat it as such.
How articles are marked
Articles that went through AI copy editing carry an “Editorial transparency” notice at the end that links back to this page. Articles published before October 2026 were not marked retroactively. Some of them were copy edited the same way.
Where the line sits
- There is always a human in the loop. Every output is read and reviewed before it is published.
- I publish under my own name. I take full responsibility for what appears here.
- The AI amplifies my voice, it does not replace it. It applies light edits; it does not generate the ideas.
- No AI slop. I have no interest in mass-produced content dressed up as expertise. That is precisely what I am trying to avoid.
If something here ever reads as machine-generated, that is a failure on my part, not the intent. I would genuinely want to know, so please reach out.