This Book is a 100% Genuine Human Creation

I’ve been asked several times now whether we used any AI in creating our book. I have to admit, that question does sting. After all, the last two pages of our book, the “colophon,” are all about the human contributions to our book. We made a point of referencing them as people, as collaborators, not simply as names on the copyright page. Our publisher told us that nobody does “colophons” (meaning something like “finishing touch”) anymore, but we’re stubborn like that.

The simple answer is that, no, we didn’t use AI in creating our book. Not for writing, not for editing, nor for any of the illustrations. Not for the book design, not for printing. Humans were involved every step of the way, and as the authors, we take pride in that.

I am finding something deeper in the question of whether AI was involved that bothers me. It took us four and a half years to go from writing the first couple of words to getting the book onto shelves (yay, physical books!). ChatGPT didn’t even exist in its public form when we started out. Sometimes I’m still shocked that we managed to stick with this project for so long. There’s plenty of software that doesn’t take anywhere as long to build yet has outlasted its purposed in less time.

Software and books share a few things, though, or at least they used to. Both can and need to be willed into existence. You can have an idea and then get to work turning that idea into written words. On the one end, those words are for humans, on the other, they’re written for machines.

Both activities require creativity and grit. Not everything is going to work as you expected. A code reviewer or an editor might tell you that this way it’s wrong and it should be that way. Which can be frustrating, but also highlights the collaborative element of both. You can go it all alone, but when everyone comes into the process with the best intentions and a shared goal, the result can end up better than when it’s just one person.

When working with an editor, that person usually holds one hand on their style manual. With the other they’re guiding your book to something that is consistent and coherent. I have never appreciated the work of an editor more than in the process of getting this book finished. The endless rewrites have been exhausting and nerve-wracking, the feedback sometimes frustrating. And yet, they have all made for a better book.

As authors, we did indeed will this book into existence. It gave us an opportunity to collaborate on something. It allowed us to stay connected across nine timezones and work towards a shared goal while also honing one of our beloved crafts. We both enjoy writing, the creative and explorative process of it.

Which is, I think, a big part of why the question on whether AI was used in its creation stings. It’s not the endless working hours, the never-ending rewrites and corrections, the poring over fonts and imagery, about whether one sentence should be bold and red, or just red, the pain but also satisfaction of deleting many paragraphs to make the book more concise.

It’s the process of writing that is the whole point. It is why I’m writing this. Because I type on a keyboard, probably why anyone writes who does appreciate the process itself, as painful as it can be sometimes. Words appear on the screen in front of me. Over time, they form something coherent, hopefully.

I feel the same when I build a deck out of wood, when I get to make things with my own hands. The joy comes from the process of creating something. The ultimate reward is that you get to sit on the deck when drinking your morning coffee, that you can share it with friends.

As long as you build it, the joy is in seeing it grow from an idea sketched out on paper. You put down one plank after the other, oftentimes repeating the same steps. And yet, there’s a sense of pride at the end of each day. You know exactly what you’ve achieved at the end of each day. The satisfaction is in the process, in the steady progress. Finally, there’s a joy in knowing that you built the thing yourself that you now get to use every day.

That’s how I feel about writing, too. The joy isn’t only in having something you can publish, a book that you put in someone else’s hand. Though, to be fair, that does feel good.

Writing is also about exploration. When we set out to write our book, we didn’t know what it would end up being. We just started writing about topics that seemed relevant, telling anecdotes that shaped our thinking as founders and leaders, offering the resulting approaches to management to a willing reader.

When I set out to write this article, I didn’t know yet where it’d lead me. I had an idea and some words in my head, but the result presented itself as I went along. Writing, to me, is the ultimate tool for thinking. It helps me turn threads of loose and disjointed thoughts into (hopefully) something that makes sense. Or it least me to the conclusion that it doesn’t make sense and I scrap it.

It’s also why I write things down by hand. I keep a journal, use a fountain pen. At a recent conference, I was using both to write down observations from the event so I wouldn’t forget. Someone walked by and said how they admired that I’m writing by hand. In this day and age, it seems so much easier to type something into your phone or yell it at your AI assistant so they can shuffle off and get to work.

There’s something else about the question of whether we used AI that I struggle with. The transformation we seem to be going through is moving so fast that the default assumption may now just be that anything can and will be created using AI. There’s talk about writers, editors, software engineers, managers, and more not being needed anymore. When you’re on LinkedIn you certainly can’t feel anything other than that the revolution is already over. At the same time you can’t help but feel that much of what’s posted there was written using AI.

You can also see services offering to “write” a book for you, as a marketing tool or to radiate authority. Presumably, the main force in putting those words together is some generative AI, maybe fed by your history of LinkedIn posts. Then it can be fed into a print-on-demand system, published as an ebook, and an auto-narrated audiobook, all translated into any language in an instant. The costs of entry are so low, it’s ridiculous.

Maybe it’s now the default assumption that all content (or code) is made using AI. When it isn’t, that may be so special that it warrants a sticker that says “100% Genuine Human Creation.”

As the norms about what’s real seem to shift weekly, there may also just be a very human response hidden behind the question: fear. When anything can be created using AI, what’s our purpose? What’s our livelihood made of? What still gives us joy and satisfaction in our work and life?

Maybe what’s hiding behind the question is a deep uncertainty about where all this may lead. You won’t find that uncertainty in the loud posts on LinkedIn. You find it in the personal conversations. I find it in my work, with my clients, that deep fear that software engineering might not be the craft it used to be. Despite the noise we don’t really know where it all might lead. That’s deeply uncomfortable.

Maybe all this makes us appreciate craft even more. Maybe we still can appreciate the work that has led to a result rather than just the result itself. Maybe we seek more human connection again, focusing on the collaborative, the deeply human aspects of our work more. Just like everybody else, I have no idea.

As Om Malik wrote, we’re all living in the petri dish of the future. There are things happening we don’t seem to be able to control let alone influence. So to me one natural response is to focus on the things we do control, the things that provide a level of joy, satisfaction, and create something useful. For me, that’s writing a book and this post. And maybe another after that.

Is all this an argument against AI? That’s at least not my intention. It may just be an argument for human creativity, ingenuity, and imperfection.

This post is a 100% Genuine Human Creation.