Why I’m no longer using AI for writing
AI helps generate text quickly, but the price is losing your personal voice. Here is why I’m returning to manual typing.
I used to think large language models would completely replace my trusty mechanical keyboard. The truth is, they just made me lazier, and my writing became much worse.
What is the true nature of AI writing?
We are living in 2026, where creating a 2,000-word blog post takes only a few seconds with Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.2. You just type a single prompt, and you instantly have a full article with an introduction, body, and conclusion.
But those texts are like fast food. They fill the empty space on the page but leave no real value for the reader. When you are exposed to dozens of online articles every day, you quickly recognize the monotonous structure, the formulaic tone, and the overly safe phrasing of machines. AI generates text, but it doesn’t create content with a soul.
A deadly uniformity
Most people might disagree, but I believe AI is stifling our writing ability. People praise its sheer speed while intentionally ignoring how it destroys originality.
A voice so safe it’s boring
According to official technical documentation from OpenAI (https://platform.openai.com/docs), GPT-5.2 is rigorously trained to provide the most helpful and least risky answers. This makes every piece of writing feel like an administrative report. It lacks irony, sharp perspectives, and—most importantly—the very “human” flaws that make a piece of writing interesting.
The illusion of productivity
Do you think pressing a button means the job is done? Not at all. You end up sitting there editing every sentence to make sure it doesn’t sound like a robot delivering a speech. That’s why I once wrote an analysis on Why I stopped using 5 types of AI productivity tools. They create an illusion that you are getting a lot done, but the actual quality of that work is declining sharply.
The hidden cost of editing
This is where things get the most exhausting and time-consuming.
The logic correction phase
Remember the Confidence Medium: The most dangerous zone of AI phenomenon? AI often writes things that sound very convincing but are fundamentally wrong. You have to sit there and fact-check every single paragraph. According to the latest announcement on Anthropic’s homepage (https://anthropic.com/news), even though Claude Opus 4.6 has significantly improved its reasoning, it still carries a probability of making logical errors when dealing with complex issues or insufficient input data.
Refining the tone
You have to strip away the “flowery” words, trim wordy paragraphs, and add real-world examples. The time it takes to edit an AI-written piece is often twice as long as it takes me to outline and type every word from scratch.
Comparison of completion time for an article
| Criteria | 100% Hand-written | AI-generated | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ideation | 30 mins | 10 mins | AI is great at brainstorming |
| Drafting | 2 hours | 2 mins | Machines generate text incredibly fast |
| Editing & Correcting | 30 mins | 3 hours | This is the main reason I gave up on AI |
| Final Quality | Deeply personal | Mediocre | You can’t force AI to write 100% like you |
How to use AI effectively for writing
I’m not anti-AI. I’ve just changed how I use it to avoid becoming dependent.
- Use it as a thinking partner: Don’t ask AI to write the whole piece. Ask it questions like “Are there any holes in my argument?”. You can refer to how to Use AI for thinking instead of outsourcing the writing.
- Summarize long documents: Thanks to the massive context windows of current models, you can toss in an entire PDF to extract information quickly before writing it yourself.
- Improve vocabulary: When you’re stuck on a word, ask the AI to list 10 different ways to express a sentence, and you can choose the one that fits best.
Check out the Keychron mechanical keyboard series to rediscover your manual typing inspiration here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I use AI to write emails?
Absolutely. Business emails require clarity, brevity, and politeness—which are AI’s strengths. You just need to skim through to ensure it doesn’t use overly flowery language.
Which model is best suited as a thinking partner?
Currently, I highly value Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.6. Its analytical and reading comprehension skills feel much more natural and less “robotic” in following orders compared to other models.
Can AI replace the writing profession?
People who churn out content for SEO spam or low-quality “junk” content will definitely lose their jobs. But writing that touches emotions and persuades readers through real experience cannot be replaced by machines.
Conclusion
Writing for yourself is hard and time-consuming. But it is that struggle with every word that helps me understand my own thoughts better. Asking AI to write for you is like asking someone else to chew your food—it’s fast and convenient, but you lose all the flavor. I choose to keep my keyboard, accept writing slower, and continue typing word by word.