I really enjoyed Jim Nielsen’s recent reflections on the value and purpose of blogging in the age of generative AI, itself a reflection on a piece by iA on the same subject:

It will no longer be enough to blog in order to merely “put out content”. The key will be what has always been key to great blogging: expressing your unique, inimitable impression.

Blogging is expressing your impression. It’s deriving action from thought. Regardless of how much the AI sphere may not be giving thought to its actions, continued blogging in the face of that reality is deliberate action with thought — something only us humans can do. Blog. Blog against the dying of the light.

For me, blogging is as much about human relationship as it is about the content. I read other bloggers because I care about what other humans think about topics I also find of interest. It is exactly this human impression, and the uniqueness thereof, that I am after when I read others’ blogs. I’m not interested in reading what machines have to say; I want to have a relationship with these other human writers and thinkers, even if that relationship is admittedly marginal or one-sided. The deep intentionality, thought, and commitment that blogging requires is what makes it better in many ways than any other social network.