AI;dr: When Writing Becomes Optional

“AI didn’t read”—that’s the pun behind “ai;dr,” a provocative take on AI-generated content that challenges us to reconsider what writing means when machines can do it for us.

The Core Insight

The author makes a provocative claim: AI-generated code feels like progress and efficiency, while AI-generated articles feel like low-effort content that makes “dead internet theory” harder to dismiss. The difference? Intentionality.

Writing is “the most direct window into how someone thinks, perceives, and groks the world.” When you outsource that to an LLM, what are you even doing?

Why This Matters

This isn’t a screed against AI tools. The author uses Claude Code extensively—”can’t imagine writing code by myself again.” The distinction is about domains:

• Code: The goal is functional output. AI helps achieve it.
• Writing: The process IS the thinking. Outsourcing it loses something essential.

The insight isn’t new, but it’s increasingly important: as AI makes content creation trivial, human authorship becomes more valuable, not less.

Key Takeaways

The Core Argument:
– Writing forces articulation of chaos into coherence
– The “rudimentary proofs of work” matter—the time and effort
– Reading someone else’s AI-generated content raises a question: why should I bother if they couldn’t be bothered?

The Paradox:
– Typos and grammatical errors used to be negative signals
– Now: “the less polished and coherent something is, the more value I assign to it”
– But now broken English is just “a skill away”

Looking Ahead

The author struggles to articulate the feeling—maybe that’s the point. Some things are harder to articulate when the tools for articulation become trivial.

The question isn’t whether AI will replace human writing. It’s what becomes valuable when anyone can generate content: intentionality, perspective, and the messy process of thinking through problems.

Maybe the future belongs not to those who produce the most content, but to those with something worth saying.

Based on analysis of “ai;dr” by Sid (0xsid.com)