Directed by me. Written with help.
Some articles here carry an AI-assisted badge. It means the thinking, the research and the conclusions are mine, and that AI helped me get them out of my head and onto the page.
Always mine
The part that matters.
- The question, and why it is worth asking
- The research, the reading and the experiments
- The argument, the structure and the conclusions
- Every judgement about what is true and what is worth saying
- The final read, the edits and the decision to publish
Where AI helps
The drafting and the shape.
- Turning notes and transcripts into first-draft prose
- Breaking a sprawling idea into sections that hold together
- Tightening paragraphs that say the same thing twice
- Titles, summaries and metadata
Never
The lines it does not cross.
- Deciding what I think
- Inventing research, results or sources
- Publishing anything — I am the only one who can do that
Why
More curiosity than hours.
I am running several things in parallel. The ideas keep arriving whether or not there is an evening free to write them up.
Company building
The work that pays for the curiosity, and the one with real deadlines attached.
Prime number research
A long-running exploration of structure and pattern that I have never been able to leave alone.
Experiments in AI
Agents, tooling and evaluation. Mostly built to find out where the idea breaks.
An old solution to the same problem
Pliny travelled with a writer at his side.
Pliny the Elder produced an encyclopaedia of the known world while holding public office and commanding a fleet. His nephew explained how: he refused to let any hour go unused, and he never travelled without someone to take down what he said.
In itinere quasi solutus ceteris curis, huic uni vacabat: ad latus notarius cum libro et pugillaribus, cuius manus hieme manicis muniebantur, ut ne caeli quidem asperitas ullum studii tempus eriperet.
On the road, as though released from every other concern, he gave himself to this alone: at his side a shorthand writer with book and tablets, whose hands were wrapped against the cold in winter, so that not even bitter weather could steal an hour of study.
Pliny the Younger, Letters 3.5 — my rendering of the Latin
He was carried through Rome in a chair for the same reason, and once scolded his nephew for going on foot: those hours could have been spent. It is an extreme worth disagreeing with — I would rather keep the walk. But the underlying problem is familiar. The bottleneck was never the thinking. It was the transcription.
A model is a poor substitute for a Roman secretary in most respects and a much better one in a few. It listens to a half-formed idea at eleven at night, gives it a shape I can argue with, and asks nothing of anyone else's evening.
How it actually works
Drafts only. I publish.
The badge is not a promise I make. It is recorded by the system that does the assisting.
A scoped key
Writing tools reach the site through an API key I generate myself. It can read everything and edit drafts. It cannot publish, and it cannot touch an article that is already live.
The badge is automatic
Every edit made with that key marks the article as AI-assisted. The key cannot set the flag or clear it, so assistance cannot quietly go unrecorded.
Then I read it properly
Nothing reaches this site without me reading it end to end, changing what is wrong, and choosing to publish it. An article without the badge was written the long way.
The honest version
I would rather publish the thinking than protect the byline.
There is a version of this where I write everything myself and most of it never gets written. The research still happens either way — it just stays in notebooks and half-finished repositories. This is the trade I have chosen, and the badge is there so you can weigh it yourself.
Read the writing