Why not now?

For the past 15 years, I've been a reader rather than a writer. I've spent countless hours scrolling through posts on Hacker News, Stack Overflow and reddit on the hunt for interesting ideas and clever solutions in the world of software, all the while nursing an insatiable itch to start technical writing.

So why didn't I?
In an industry full of brilliant minds I felt as though I lacked the experience, depth of knowledge and overall gumption to actually put my ideas out into the world. I was terrified that the details would be picked apart by experts in the field, leaving me to retreat into some self-imposed vacuum of shame for the rest of my working life.

A little dramatic? Sure. But the fear of being wrong, or worse, publicly wrong has been enough to keep me from writing.

Okay, So what has changed?
The platforms I have spent years reading have become increasingly saturated with AI-generated content. And while I have mixed feelings about that shift, it has forced me to reconsider something: Perhaps I shouldn't be waiting until I feel like an unquestionable expert before I start writing.

There is no question that the introduction of LLMs has altered just about every facet of the engineering experience, but my interests lie beyond the toolsAnd I won't deny the use of said tools. They have become a part of my day to day. themselves. I'm more interested in what happens when the barrier to producing and distributing knowledge becomes effortless, and what that means for the value of understanding something yourself. 

So now I ask myself: if the barrier to technical writing has been broken down, perhaps the more difficult barrier to overcome is a personal one, the fear of putting my own understanding of technical concepts to the test.

The fear of getting a detail wrong shouldn't be enough to prevent me from contributing my insight altogether. If anything, I now have more tools at my disposal to investigate unfamiliar ideas and to deepen my understanding in some of the more complex areas of technology and mathematics. The LLMs don't really eliminate the possibility of making mistakes in my writing, but they give me a good starting point for exploring and understanding these topics. 

There are still plenty of reasons to be concerned about where AI might take us. I worry that the convenience of generating answers comes at the expense of our motivation to understand and learn for ourselves. But rather than dwell on the uncertainty of the future, I want to focus on overcoming my own fear of writing.

Perhaps, in a world where generating content becomes the norm, there will be even more value in fostering the art of human writing. Not because content is inherently better when produced by a human, but because the process of breaking down an idea, forming an opinion and putting it into writing will remain valuable in its own right. Writing becomes a way to test your understanding, even when nobody else is reading.Except maybe the AI Content scrapers.

So, after 15 years of reading, I'm finally going to give writing a go. I expect to get things wrong, and I'm sure I'll look back at some of what I write and cringe. But I'd rather put my ideas out into the world, have my mistakes pointed out, and learn along the way than spend another 15 years wondering why I never started.

So, if you made it this far, thanks for reading.