To say that 2024 has been a year would be an understatement. Though I’m talking about things that have happened offline, the same can be said for the WordPress economy at large, too.
On a regrettable level, the degree at which I’ve written has decreased more this year than likely any other year since I’ve been writing. Some of this can be attributed to stage of life, some can be attributed to work, and some of this can be attributed to the rise of AI in our industry.
Over a year ago, I wrote that ChatGPT Wrecked Our Type of Content in which I claim:
Though the goals of this question are not mutually exclusive, I think getting an answer fast often outweighs the “I’m looking for an answer but it was neat to also read about someone else’s situation while searching for it.” And this is why ChatGPT has “wrecked” some of the content a bunch of us typically write.
But, as stated, it’s been over a year since this was written. And since I work in R&D in my current role, we’ve done – and continue to do – a lot of work with the various systems, applications, utilities, and so on.
Given that, I – like many of you – have recalibrated my perspective on how this changes the work we do.
ChatGPT Didn’t Wreck Our Type of Content
Improved Productivity
First, it’s undeniable that when used properly, AI assistants can vastly improve productivity. I run both Copilot and Cody in my editor as I’m consistently evaluating which one performs best for a given use case. At the time of this writing, I’m partial to Cody though I also know Copilot is going to support multiple LLMs in the coming months (or weeks?).
So, sure, AI assistants have changed the way the work in our day-to-day but, as the months have passed, I’m no longer convinced it’s “wrecked” our type of content so much as it’s “drastically altered” how we explain – for lack of a better word – our content.
One of which is more neutral than the other.
Large Context Windows but Lacking Context
Secondly, for as much as I typically work with ChatGPT, Gemini, and/or Claude (is there a clever acronym for all of these, yet?) on a daily basis, I find myself continuing to enjoy well-written content either in newsletters (see The WP Minute, The Repository, or Within WordPress) or blogs (see Brian Coords, what Mike is doing over with Ollie, and so on). Though I’m but one person, each of these properties or people continue to publish even though LLMs are available for any of us to use.
And that brings me to the final point: There are reasons AI hasn’t completely wrecked the type of content I – and others – have often published:
- AI hallucinates. Recommendations provided within a given LLM are presented with an authoritative sense regardless of if the recommendations even use hooks, function names, or language features that don’t exist.
- Lack of context. LLMs do not have the context as to how a given developer arrived at a solution and why one was chosen over another. Sure, you can ask for a variety of solutions and tradeoffs but there are times in which it’s still faster to read from someone who’s had the same experience, shared it, and provided contextual information as to how and why they arrived at a solution.
- Aggressive Autocomplete. I’m a fan of using coding assistants within my IDE. As I said, the level of productivity and speed of solving problems has definitely increased, but that doesn’t mean its attempts to autocomplete a piece of functionality are always helpful. It still takes a critical eye to review what’s being proposed and determine whether or not it’s worth integrating.
There are likely more and your experience likely varies – but I suspect aren’t much different – from mine.
The Why Behind the How
The reason I share all of this is because one of the fundamental things that is missed when working solely with AI is the value that human beings bring to the table when sharing the why behind the how.
This is not me taking a position on whether or not AI will, can, should, or whatever other argument is the current hot topic replace humans. Instead, it’s me saying that although I appreciate the value AI has brought to our industry and I recognize it alters the need for certain types of content, I no longer think it completely negates or replaces the type of content about I – and others – used to write.
Sure, our approach may need to be tweaked but there’s still plenty of ways to regularly share what we’re working on, how to solve a certain problem, and why one solution was chosen versus another.
Finishing 2024, Into 2025
Given that 2024 is coming to a close in the coming weeks and that we seem to have accepted the role AI plays in the day-to-day work of software development, perhaps I can start writing somewhat regularly once again.
There’s no shortage of things I’ve built, learned, saved, and archived. And while others have continued to publish their stuff, I’ve missed doing the same. Perhaps the coming weeks – and coming year – is a time in which those of us who so frequently wrote about development can find our way to back to doing exactly that.
Maybe with a few alterations, though.
