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Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying
(www.thenerve.news)
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this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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I typed into Google "potatoes pressure cooker" to get a reminder of how long to cook them. The AI told me, and correctly said that I should use the steamer sieve, but also told me to salt the water. The water that would be under the potatoes and that wouldn't touch them.
I asked why, and the AI said that little splashes of salt water from the boiling would land on the surface of the potatoes and salt them gently, that the salt would increase the boiling temperature, and that the vapour would be aromatic.
I pointed out that the amount of salt landing on the surface of the potatoes would be negligible, that the vapour is distilled water in gas form, and that the increase in boiling temperature from salting the water is less than 1°C. The AI said, oh yeah, you're right on all counts. Don't salt the water.
What it has been doing was exactly what an LLM does. It gave me the received wisdom from the internet.
That aligns with what Cory Doctorow was saying here, namely that all the AI successes were from people who already knew what they were doing and could use the AI as a tool. Not from people who had no clue and just let AI do the job.
I use google "ai" in when thrifting for audio gear. Minimum 80% of the time it gets something GLARINGLY wrong. "Oh ho ho! You correctly pointed out that I was completely wrong on all counts! An astute observation! Let me try again but this time give you the CORRECT information."
Exactly. I use AI primarily as a natural-language search engine, when searching for things that can quickly be independently verified. One of the best uses for it is when you know a thing probably exists, but you don't know the name for it. You can describe to the LLM the object or problem in detail, and it will give you a name. You can then take that word and do a non-AI search to instantly confirm if it got it right.
I'll never use an AI for something I can't at least verify without an AI.
I mean, to be fair, that’s a dirt cheap model you’re talking to, and Google is not exactly at the forefront of any tier of model, cheap or otherwise.
Is that you being fair or is that you rushing to defend something?
As if you don't know these "tools" don't work.
I mean... it gave you the amalgamated wisdom of the internet after a very complex game of telephone.
I use AI as a writing tool, not as a substitute for authorship.
The ideas, intent, perspective, and final judgment are mine. I decide what I want to say, what belongs in the piece, what does not, and whether the finished version accurately represents me. AI may help me organize my thoughts, clarify a sentence, improve the flow, or find wording that better expresses what I already mean. That is not fundamentally different from working with an editor, dictating to a transcriber, or revising a draft after receiving feedback.
What matters is that I review the final work, approve it, and put my name on it. By doing that, I take responsibility for every sentence. If the writing is thoughtful, accurate, and effective, I am responsible for those choices. If it is careless, misleading, generic, or full of slop, that is also my responsibility. Blaming the tool would be an attempt to avoid accountability.
AI does not decide what I believe. It does not decide what I am willing to defend. It does not decide what I publish under my name. I do.
The tool may assist with the writing process, but the authorship comes from intention, judgment, selection, revision, and responsibility. The final work is mine because I chose it, shaped it, approved it, and signed my name to it.
That sounds more like the job of an editor than the job of a writer.
When I was an editor, my job was to assign stories to writers and then to work with the editorial team to revise and refine their output into an end product that the publication could stand behind.
Your process sounds a lot like that.
I think that is a fair comparison, and it is much closer to the conversation I was hoping to have.
I used “writing” and “authorship” pretty broadly in the original comment. I was talking about expressing my thoughts in things like letters, emails, comments, essays, and so on. What has been interesting is watching people get very hung up on the labels “writer” and “author,” then react to what they think I am claiming without really engaging with the process I was describing.
Your editor comparison is interesting because I used to work as an art director, and there are similarities. I did not paint or draw. I would explain an idea in words, hunt down reference images, point to compositions or details I liked, and work with a concept artist through round after round of sketches. I would say, “this is closer,” “that misses the idea,” “combine this with that,” or sometimes realize that my original concept itself needed to change.
I did not draw the artwork, and I would never claim that I did. But I was still doing creative work, and more importantly, the process was refining my own thinking.
That is the part of using AI that interests me most. I give it a thought, see that thought reflected back at me in language, judge what works and what does not, clarify what I actually mean, reject bad reasoning, discover distinctions I had not articulated yet, and then go through the process again.
Sometimes I come out of that process with better prose. More importantly, sometimes I come out of it with a better thought. So whether we ultimately call that “writing,” “editing,” or something else is honestly less interesting to me than what is happening in the process itself. I am not just refining the words. The act of interrogating and refining the words is also refining me.
You're lost in the sauce. Do you know any other writers in real life? How do they feel about this?
Could you tell me which part of my argument you think is wrong?
I'm not wasting my time or energy arguing with a writer that doesn't write.
I was hoping “a writer that doesn’t write” was the conclusion to an argument rather than the entire argument. I’m perfectly happy to be wrong. What I can’t do is respond to an argument you’re keeping to yourself.
You didn't make an argument, you listed your justifications for using plagiaristic genAI as a shortcut instead of doing the actual work yourself.
I did make an argument. My argument is that authorship is grounded in the origination of the ideas and intent, control over what goes into the work, endorsement of the final form, and responsibility for the result. Assistance with the linguistic realization does not, by itself, transfer authorship.
I’ve thought through that position, refined it, and I’m willing to defend it. Calling AI use “plagiaristic” or a “shortcut” doesn’t actually address the argument.
So which part do you reject: that I originated the ideas, that I exercised control over the final work, that I endorsed it, or that I’m responsible for it? And why?
that's bullshit.
Why?
"authorship is when i make a few edits and sign my name to slop"
if you have willingly handed over your primary writing tool to a machine (for which there is no real meaning, association, appreciation, or delight in words), it is difficult for me to take your commitment to writing or "authorship" seriously.
I did not say “authorship is when I make a few edits and sign my name to slop.” That is not my argument.
My argument is that authorship is grounded in the origination of the ideas and intent, control over what goes into the work, judgment over how those ideas are expressed, endorsement of the final form, and responsibility for the result. Assistance with the linguistic realization does not, by itself, transfer authorship.
You point out that the machine has no meaning, association, appreciation, or delight in the words. I agree. But I do. That is precisely the distinction I am making. The machine does not know what I mean, care whether it represents me, recognize when an analogy fails, or decide whether an argument is worth defending. I am doing those things.
You seem to be defining “writing” as personally generating the initial sequence of words. Maybe that is where we actually disagree. But that definition cannot simply be assumed and then used to prove that I am not writing. Why should authorship reside specifically in first-pass word generation rather than in the thought, intention, judgment, revision, and control that determine what the final words mean?
That is the argument I am interested in having.
i started to read your response, and then i remembered i can't trust the degree to which you authored it.
i'm not interested.
"I dont write anything but i take credit for everything"
Interesting. When you want to criticize the argument, the words are mine enough to hold me responsible for them. But when I claim responsibility for those same words, suddenly they're not mine.
"I don't write anything but take credit for everything" is a straw man. If you disagree, address what I actually said.
I was reading the initial comment with peer-reviewed publications in mind and it all sounded like standard practice, but then I read yours and was like "oh, are we talking about books now?"
Either way, its still a bad look. Peer review is even worse than Op Eds, or fiction, or what have you... But its all equally socially degenerate
that's just called writing.
That's my point.
I really like a song that has intro and outro samples and I wanted to know where they were from, so I googled. Google AI promptly informed me that the song has no samples. Guess that settles that.
My husband was recently trying to find an exact quote from Richard Pryor's character in Lost Highway, so he Googled it.
Google's AI overview said that Richard Pryor was not in Lost Highway and instead gave some suggestions for other films we might be thinking of.
The quote he was trying to remember was, "There's nine people down here, and you can ask seven of them. If you can get that price from one of them, I'll let you ask the other two."
I do potatoes in my instant pot but leave the water in, it just gets absorbed. So the salt is effective in that case. I salt the potatoes themselves and toss them before adding the water, too, so they should get reasonably seasoned.
Also i use soup stock.
Mashed, though.
That “AI” is a completely dumbed down one with reasoning disabled. Of course it’ll make stuff up.
Salting the water would increase the boiling temperature I guess, but it seems like a waste of salt because that info isn't meaningfully changing the cooking time
Salting the water is relevant when not using a pressure cooker. It makes no sense when you're steaming them in a pressure cooker. AI is a good tool, sometimes. But for everyday tasks, it is irrelevant and often wrong.