The Manual Work: Authenticity In The Age Of AI

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It’s been a while since my last post about AI and writing. Back then, I was worried about how AI would dissolve the real person behind the words. I wasn’t entirely wrong to worry about that. But I think it’s fair to explore different perspectives and update my understanding more often.

Things have changed fast. The AI tools are evolving at a pace that’s honestly a bit frightening. It’s Decembre 2025, and I believe it’s a good time to make retrospection, challenge my assumptions, and adjust my knowledge. After all, humans have always survived by adapting depending on the circumstances. And I’m but a human in this era of AI.
I’ve reconsidered my perspective and gave AI a honest try with new perspectives, new lense and here are my updated thoughts regarding writing.

There are things that don’t feel quite right to outsource:

  • Emotional depth doesn’t come from a language model—it comes from feeling, from struggling, from living through moments that shape us.
  • Relational understanding requires showing up for people, being vulnerable, learning through connection what no training data can teach.
  • Intellectual development demands grappling with hard problems ourselves. If we skip the struggle, we skip the understanding.
  • Intention—our sense of direction, what we actually want—that’s ours to cultivate.

These four things are where our humanity lives, at least as far as I can tell.

I keep thinking about walking as a metaphor. We walk not just to get somewhere, but because walking builds us.
It strengthens our body, clears our mind, teaches us about the world at a human scale. It is necessary for our wellbeing.

AI is like a car.
Once you’ve walked long enough to build real strength, taking a vehicle for long distances makes sense.
You still walk to the corner store. You still use your legs. You understand what they can do because you’ve used them. But for vast distances, taking a vehicle just make sense.

Some people have walked long enough to develop strong foundations. Years of intentional effort, struggle, showing up. They are way ahead of anybody who’ve just started the walk. They’ve built strength for years, and still continue to do so that any new challenger can’t ever hope to catch up.
AI won’t build that strength for us. That part is completely up to the individual. But it gives us an opportunity, a chance to close the gap in distance.

AI can be the amplifier:

  • After you’ve felt something deeply, AI can help you convey it.
  • After you’ve built relational wisdom through genuine connection, AI can help you articulate it.
  • After you’ve struggled with an idea and wrestled with it, AI can help you refine your thinking.
  • After you’ve decided where you want to go and why, AI can help you execute it.

But the struggle has to happen first.

AI often will mislead us into the convenience of skipping steps. It’s easy to be tempted. The tool is seductive precisely because it works, because it’s fast, because it removes friction. And it’s up to each of us to resist the temptations, to adjust our relationship with it, to notice when we’re letting convenience become the decision-maker.
AI has the power to carry us further, and at the same time, the power to dissolve us to nothingness and strip away our will. We have to retain the ability to decide where to go.
The way we are should remain. Our authenticity should not be dissolved.

We are the idea bringer and the decision maker. The AI should assist us in conveying the idea, not replace us in our decision-making. That boundary matters.
We need to engage AI after we are clear on what we want.

So maybe it’s worth giving AI a chance for the long distances, for the mechanical work, for amplification. But the work that shapes who we are—the emotional work, the relationships that require our presence, the ideas we need to struggle with to understand them—these feel worth protecting.

Fun fact: This article was originally written using AI assistant. It took me so much back and forth, so much editing to get it to reflect what I’m trying to convey and the way I want to convey the idea. It makes me wonder whether I could have saved a great deal of time by doing it myself.