Week 07, 2026

This one was a challenge to get through. Firstly, the firm had many, many technical issues which kept quite a few of us up until the wee hours. We do need to simplify; complexity brings with it a multitude of break points. Secondly, there was hardly any time to myself with all that mess going on.

I did, however, have time to read about what I’m interested in, and one thing which remains firmly fixed in my mind this week is how people have started reading online blog posts and articles, looking for so-called ‘AI tells’. I’m guilty of this behaviour as well. I use the Internet to search for something when I need it. For example, how to use LibreOffice to import a web table. It is inevitable that I land on a top-ranked page in my favourite search engine which is so full of waffle that I simply click away, cursing whoever published it and in my mind, accusing them of using AI to write that. I, of course, make that accusation without a shred of evidence. That accusation is made on the basis of me subconsciously reading material whilst actively looking for the ‘AI tell’. It’s not really fair, I think.

It’s 50/50. They may have, they may not have. But I judge, I curse and I leave in disgust, upset at having had my time wasted.

This week, I stopped and thought about it. No, there was not a single em-dash in there, like this: — . I have probably written and typed-out a thousand times more em-dashes in my lifetime than that poor sod. There were just a lot of words for something so small. In a moment of weakness recently, I even considered replacing all the em-dashes on my blog with --.

But, why? In case I’m suddenly accused of using AI to output my posts? Yeah, probably that — again -- subconsciously. That brought me to the real heart of this.

I primarily write everything on here for myself. I also read and re-read it to death before I dare hit that ‘publish’ button. This is my escape, my junk box, my messy, unordered, random thoughts and discoveries. I self-edit (who likes spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, not to mention, waffle?) in a meagre effort to create some semblance of organisation, balance and coherence. This weblog is not an engagement farm, looking for attention or clicks. Read, don’t read; fine. Accuse, don’t accuse; also fine. If others want to engage in spewing out AI garbage, cool with me; I just won’t read it. I also will not level accusations without evidence ever again. What’s next? Are we to expect all article-type content on the Internet to show a screen recording of the author typing-out the words? Yeah, that might work… hey! What if they have a second screen out of shot with AI generated content on it, and they’re simply copy-typing??

This whole post and conversation is getting silly, like this past week. What would AI do?

Fin.