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Anton Minin Baranovskii
Anton Minin Baranovskii

Posted on • Originally published at antonmb.com

Writing in the Age of AI: A Personal Essay

Writing Means Researching

For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to write.

Not just to put words into texts, but to share thoughts, reflect, analyze, and try to get to the essence of things. I have always been interested in not stopping at the first explanation, but going a little deeper. Looking at why something works exactly the way it does. Why people make certain decisions. Why some ideas seem obvious, while others only open up after a long inner journey.

At some point, I realized something interesting for myself: getting to the essence in a final sense is probably impossible.

At first, this does not sound very optimistic. As if you are moving toward some point, and then you realize that there will most likely be no final point. There is only movement and process. There are new questions, new connections, new doubts, and new levels of understanding.

I felt very sharply how small my knowledge is against the background of the enormous world. How much exists around me. How many topics, systems, people, and fields I know too little about. Even in the competencies I have, there is always another level and another depth.

I felt like a grain of sand in a huge world.

But later, this feeling became alive and inspiring for me. There was a kind of honesty in it. If it is impossible to know everything, then you can continue researching. If it is impossible to put a final point, then the path itself becomes more important.

After reading Nassim Taleb, this feeling became even clearer for me. His thoughts on uncertainty, randomness, the fragility of knowledge, and the limits of human forecasting helped me accept one simple thing more calmly: the world is much more complex than our explanations. We often want to see a clear system of causes and effects, but reality is wider. It contains a lot of the unknown, a lot of the random, and a lot of what cannot be calculated in advance.

And this does not make research meaningless. On the contrary, for me it makes it even more interesting.

Because then the answer is not the only thing that matters. The way of thinking matters. Honesty with yourself matters. The ability to doubt, check, return to your conclusions, and admit that you may have missed something matters.

Over time, I realized that research is what I truly want to do. Yes, in some sense it is strange to search for the essence while understanding that there may be no final essence. But for me, this is exactly where the beauty is.

The beauty is in the process.

In the moment when scattered thoughts suddenly form a chain. When facts, observations, doubts, and personal experience connect, and you begin to see the structure. When something complex suddenly becomes simple. So simple and obvious that you get goosebumps.

For me, this is one of the strongest feelings.

Perhaps this is close to the state of flow described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. When you are fully immersed in the process, lose the sense of outside noise, and remain alone with the thought, the task, and the movement forward.

Writing in the age of AI

At the same time, for a long time I could not write the way I wanted to.

I am not the most patient person. It is difficult for me to hold my attention on one text for a long time. I often switch between things. Thoughts come quickly, but turning them into a coherent article has always been difficult.

And this is where the age of artificial intelligence changed a lot for me.

Today, there is a tool that helps work with thought differently. For me, GPT has become more than a text assistant. It has become a conversation partner. An editor. An opponent. Sometimes a mirror in which I can see my own thought from the outside.

I asked it myself to criticize me harshly.

Because at some point I realized: the goal is more important than the ego. If I really want to research a topic, I do not need confirmation that I am right. I need my thought to be tested. I need questions. I need objections. I need weak spots that I may not have noticed myself.

AI helps me analyze, argue with myself, search for arguments, see gaps, and formulate thoughts more clearly. At the same time, it can also make mistakes. And this is an important part of the process.

Every chat says that AI can make mistakes. And this is true. But AI is not the only one that can make mistakes. I can make mistakes too, especially when I start believing too quickly in the coherence of my own thought.

That is why a conversation with AI does not replace thinking for me. Rather, it helps keep thinking in shape.

How my articles come into being

You ask a question. You receive an answer. You do not agree immediately. You check. You doubt. You compare. You return to the original idea. Sometimes you realize that the thought was weak. Sometimes, on the contrary, you see that there is something important in it, it just has not yet been formulated precisely enough.

This is how my articles gradually come into being.

First, an inner thought appears. Often raw, emotional, and unformed. I dictate it as it is. Then I begin to discuss it. I receive criticism. I check facts. I clarify the idea. I remove what is unnecessary. Sometimes I completely change direction. Sometimes I realize that I need to dive deeper into the topic before writing further.

Only after that does the text appear.

Writing as research

For me, writing is increasingly becoming a form of research. To write an honest text, you need to walk the path inside the topic yourself. You need to face your own lack of knowledge. You need to let the thought mature. You need to be ready for the fact that a good comment or honest criticism can change your position.

I write not because I have final answers.

I write because I am interested in thinking out loud. I am interested in researching. I am interested in sharing how a thought appears, develops, and changes. I am interested in finding people who also care not only about the conclusion, but about the path toward it.

Comments, feedback, and criticism truly matter to me. Because often it is precisely in conversation that the next step opens up. Sometimes one precise question helps you see more than several hours of thinking alone.

Perhaps that is why I like writing so much.

It is a way to stay in the process. A way to think more attentively. A way to share what feels important right now. And a way to keep searching, even while understanding that there may be no final point.

Thank you for reading to the end.

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