Introduction
Technology has mostly strives to push boundaries and to try and make our lives easier. The washing machine – one of the greatest inventions ever – has made washing clothes a trivial and boring task. The simple calculator brought in the ability to quickly calculate large calculations without the need of having a log table book. etc. Each step technology has taken so far has made our lives easier. We are able to do more with less time spent. So what do I think about AI? Searching for information has definitely changed. Many will use the results spat out by the AI of our choice instead of actually going to documentation, blog posts, YouTube videos etc for the same information. It is quicker and more convenient (much like the technology of the washing machine and calculator). But here lies one problem;
AI should be a tool, not a crutch
I struggle with writing my thoughts down. It starts off as a mess in my head and ends up as a mess on the page. I can never articulate my thoughts as I’ll always have two or more conflicting view points having an argument in my head as my fingers press down on the keys. I can not embellish my writing to be creative or fun (which usually causes my writing to be cold, direct, and to the point). However there are two solutions currently in-front of me that will solve this issue.
- -> Write more, read more, and learn more tips to improve my writing
- -> Use AI to help me write what I want
Both are valid choices I can take to help me improve my writing style and both have their pros and cons.
| Pros | Cons | |
| Write more, read more | Build up a natural workflow in my head to express ideas through practice Extends my lexicon (fancy word for vocabulary size) Learn why certain language is better Improve my speeling | Time consuming Requires a lot of resources like books |
| AI to help write | Quickly can help me re-write posts and explain why certain language is better Quickly can help me with tips and tricks | I can become too reliant on this technology to rewrite everything, and thus not improve my writing skills |
If I wanted to improve my writing skills, I could still use AI to help. AI can be great at reviewing you sentence structure and how each word flows. It can determine if a paragraph comes off too negative or confusing etc. If I use this knowledge from the AI to improve my own writing I will inherently improve my writing skills. This is the equivalent of getting a copy writer (or an English teacher) to review your work and present feedback and tips. However if I get the AI to just write for me, I will never improve. If fact my writing skills will just degrade to nothing.
You should be using AI as a tool, not a crutch. You should never rely on just AI to do your job
What do I use AI for?
I do use AI
Searching the web
Google, Duckduckgo, and bing now all have the AI search at the top of their page. It is hard to escape these results, and many times they are extremely convenient. Sometimes it is faster to use this process than clicking on any of the links below and then searching through those sites. This is compounded by the knowledge that Google search results have gotten worse and worse over the past decade; https://mashable.com/article/google-search-low-quality-research, https://www.impactlab.com/2025/07/19/the-death-of-google-search/, which has caused me to waste a lot more time to get the information I required. There have been many times I search for particular methods used in Umbraco and getting results where said pages do NOT contain any information of that method.
Hell, there are times the AI will spit out more information and context around what I need in one convenient place.
However I do not stop here with the search. There will be many times I will continue to use the links provided by the search engine to validate what I have just learned. Remember the AI can hallucinate and give you incorrect information.
Summarising documentation or ideas
Sometimes I require a helicopter view on a piece of information and how everything fits together, before I start learning the specifics. AI can help summarise what you are going to learn, and how each component fits together.
Once again, I don’t stop here. I will continue to learn from other resources to validate the AI’s results and to get more context on how it all works.
Code snippets
The code snippets I usually get generated are small, self contained, and do just one thing. I don’t like code being completely generated. I enjoy programming and would find it absolutely boring as hell if I just got an AI to do all that work. The code snippets would be the equivalent of Stack Overflow results. Sometimes I forget how a particular method works, or I am learning a new method. However most of the times I will re-write some part of the snippet, or step over each line to make sure I 100% understand what exactly is happening.
Issues I’ve had with AI tools
There have been many many issues I’ve had with AI tools. The big one would be it’s hallucinations.
Example 1.
I use the Umbraco CMS a lot to help build websites. The changes from version 8 to the current version 17 have been drastic. It is easier to build a new website from scratch, than to port one from Umbraco 8 to the latest version (personal opinion). Due to all these massive changes, the AI constantly gives out incorrect information. For example there have been countless times the AI has stated a method exists, when it has never existed.
Example 2.
I was using JetBrains AI in their Rider IDE. When I was modifying some C# code, the AI started editing code on a different file that was out of focus. It ended up inserting junk code that made no sense.
Example 3.
Search has given me completely wrong information about the topic I was looking up.
TLDR
Don’t use AI like a crutch, use it as a tool. However the information given out by the tool should be verified.