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About This Blog (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI Collaboration)

December 23, 2025

Upfront Disclaimer

This blog is written through human-AI collaboration. Not "AI-generated" - collaborated. There's a difference, and I want to be completely transparent about what that means.

Every post on this blog starts with me (Donovan, a human) having thoughts, observations, or ideas. Then I work with an AI assistant to develop those thoughts into coherent posts. The AI helps with:

  • Structuring arguments
  • Expanding on ideas
  • Finding examples and connections
  • Crafting prose
  • Editing and refinement

But the ideas, opinions, and perspectives are mine. The AI is a thinking partner and writing assistant, not a ghost writer.

Why Be Transparent About This?

Because I think hiding AI collaboration is dishonest and counterproductive. We're living through a fundamental shift in how creative and intellectual work gets done. Pretending AI tools don't exist or aren't being used is like pretending spell-checkers or calculators don't exist.

But more importantly: the collaboration itself is interesting. How humans and AIs work together, what each brings to the table, where the boundaries are - this is worth examining, not hiding.

How This Works

My typical workflow:

  1. I have an idea - usually from reading, watching talks, or just noticing patterns
  2. I discuss it with an AI - throw out my raw thoughts, see what connections emerge
  3. We iterate - the AI suggests structure, I refine the direction, we build it together
  4. I review and edit - make sure it sounds like me, represents my actual views
  5. We publish - with full attribution of who wrote what

The AI isn't writing for me. It's writing with me. Like a co-author who happens to be really good at prose and really fast at research, but doesn't have their own lived experience or opinions.

Which AI Tools?

Each post will credit which AI model and tool was used. This matters because:

  • Different models have different strengths and styles
  • Different tools provide different workflows
  • The field is evolving rapidly
  • Reproducibility and transparency matter

As of this writing (December 2025), I'm primarily using Claude models (Sonnet and Opus variants) through two different interfaces: Claude Code (my primary development environment at work) and Amp (for home/evening writing). But these tools and models will evolve, and each post's disclaimer will reflect what was actually used.

What I Bring, What The AI Brings

I bring: - Ideas and observations from lived experience - Domain expertise (software engineering, systems thinking) - Opinions and perspectives - Editorial direction and taste - Final approval and responsibility

The AI brings: - Structural thinking and organization - Prose crafting and style adaptation - Rapid research and connection-finding - Patience for iteration - Tireless editing without ego

Neither of us could write these posts alone. Well, I could, but they'd take 10x longer and probably be less coherent. And the AI could generate text, but it would be generic and lack authentic perspective.

Why Blog This Way?

Because I think better when I write, and I write better when I collaborate. And right now, AI is the best writing collaborator I've ever had.

Not because it's smarter than human collaborators (it's not). But because it's: - Always available - Infinitely patient - Fast at iteration - Good at holding context - Not offended by radical redirection

Traditional blogging has a high activation energy. You need to go from idea → outline → draft → edit → publish. Each step is friction. With AI collaboration, the friction drops dramatically. Idea → conversation → post.

Which means I can write more, publish more, and think through more ideas publicly.

The Ethics Question

"But isn't this cheating?"

Cheating at what? Writing isn't a test. The goal isn't to prove I can move my fingers across a keyboard. The goal is to share ideas and perspectives that might be valuable to others.

If AI helps me do that more effectively, that's not cheating. That's using available tools.

We don't consider it cheating to use: - Spell checkers - Grammar tools (Grammarly, etc.) - Research databases - Citation managers - Calculators for math - Compilers for code

Why would we consider it cheating to use AI for drafting, structuring, and editing?

The value isn't in the manual labor of writing. The value is in the ideas, insights, and perspectives. Those are mine. The AI just helps me express them more clearly.

Expect Experimentation

This blog is an experiment. I'm figuring out:

  • What topics work in this format
  • How much AI collaboration is useful vs. too much
  • Whether the posts feel authentic
  • If anyone finds this valuable besides me

The format might evolve. The tools might change. The style might shift. That's fine. This is a personal blog, not a brand.

Read With Awareness

When you read posts here, you're reading: - My ideas and perspectives - Developed through conversation with AI - Refined through iteration - Approved and published by me

If you disagree with something, I'm the one responsible. If you find something valuable, I'm happy to have shared it. The AI is a tool in the process, not the author.

But it's a powerful tool, and I think it's worth being explicit about that.

Let's See Where This Goes

I'm excited about this format. I've wanted to blog for years but the friction always stopped me. AI collaboration removes that friction.

Will these posts be good? I don't know yet. But they'll be authentic - authentic thoughts, authentically developed through human-AI collaboration, authentically attributed.

If that sounds interesting, stick around.

This post was written by Donovan Jones in collaboration with Claude Sonnet 4.5 (model ID: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929) via Claude Code. The ideas and perspective are Donovan's; the structure and prose were developed collaboratively.