AI and my projects

[exxos]

AI and my projects - said once, so I don't have to keep saying it

I've mentioned this on the forum plenty of times over the years, but it's been on my mind for the past few weeks what to do about it all, so it seems worth putting in one place so there's no confusion.

These days pretty much everything I work on uses AI for something. That could be code, firmware, debugging, documentation, test programs, web pages or just untangling a problem I've been stuck on. It's also things like searching for parts and part numbers and checking whether they're actually in stock. That job is incredibly tedious, and after doing it over and over for literally years, I simply despise it. I now use AI for it almost every single time. The design decisions, the hardware, the testing on real machines and the responsibility for the end result are still mine. If something doesn't work, that's on me, not the tools.

Going forward, I'm not going to label every project, post or release with "AI was used here". Just assume it was, because it almost certainly was. If that upsets anyone, then I apologise, but I'm not going to change how I work because of it.

I'm saying this partly because earlier this year a release of mine got picked up on an Atari scene site, and someone insisted it should carry an AI disclaimer. That ended up costing me the best part of a day sorting it out with the site owner, for something I had never hidden in the first place. The next day I asked myself why I even cared. Frankly, I don't anymore. I don't feel I owe anyone an explanation for what tools I use, any more than I'd explain which brand of soldering iron I used.

I'm already doing the work of about 20 people as it is. Trying to keep track of every little thing AI has or hasn't touched, and remembering to declare this or that to keep people happy, is just wasted time in my opinion. I have better things to do with my time.

A good example is GB7. It had effectively been shelved because of a double screen refresh bug, which would have taken an enormous amount of time to track down manually through all the code. Honestly, I couldn't face it. AI found the problem and fixed it. Without that, GB7 would most likely still be sitting on the shelf. But I'm not going to start logging every bug fix, line of code or tweak AI was involved in. That really would be a waste of everyone's time, mine included.

Why AI?

As I've said for years, I have far more work than one person can keep on top of. The store, the forum, the server, hardware development, firmware, support, the wiki and everything in between. I also have RSI, and AI takes a significant amount of the typing and repetitive work off my hands. That alone makes it a big win for me.

The other reason is simply that the community is small. Over the years I've asked for help on a lot of things, sometimes for literally years, and much of the time the answer was silence. That isn't a dig at anyone. Some people do help, and that has always been very much appreciated, and you know who you are. But the reality is that most of my questions and requests for help have gone unanswered. AI fills that gap. Without it, a lot of what I've released recently simply wouldn't exist, or would still be sitting on the bench half finished.

The Atari Music Network articles are a perfect example. I'd been asking for help with those for literally years, and nobody wanted the job. Recently around 40 articles were completely recovered, rebuilt, updated to a proper format and layout, and posted on the forum one a day. No doubt many of you saw them appear. AI did the recovery and the rebuilding, and even wrote the script that posted them on the forum. My part was detailing what needed doing, instructing it, and checking and verifying everything before it went live.

So AI is doing the jobs nobody else wanted to do. If anyone feels the need to complain about that, I'd gently point out that I don't really see why I should have to justify how a job got done when there was nobody else interested in doing it in the first place. I'd much rather spend my time getting things finished and into people's hands than defending how they were made.

Looking at other forums, this whole "was AI used?" debate is only going to get bigger as AI becomes part of everyday tools. Before long it will be in pretty much everything, and demanding a declaration on every project will make about as much sense as asking which compiler or text editor someone used. I'd rather not spend my time going round in circles on it, so this post is my answer, now and in the future.