RE: https://mastodon.social/@SteveFaulkner/116091145441116888

I used to have a decent sideline as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for technical writing. All that work disappeared because LLMs took over and I refuse to use fabrication tools, esp. not for work where accuracy matters

So, now, when I see the people running tech writing teams complain that all their SMEs use LLMs to plagiarise and fabricate, I’m not particularly sympathetic.

This is specifically a mess you were warned about but decided to make and sit in anyway. FAFO.

Another quote from the above blog post is heartbreakingly accurate:

> For the first time in my life, I’m suddenly wary of meeting other "computer programmers" in the wild. I feel like there’s a decent chance we won’t actually have much in common, let alone values or morality.

Not helped by the fact that every dev I met in the wild last year was a hop away from being a goose-stepping Nazi, spouting phrases like “some kinds of people should die because they are a burden to society”

> One by one, I’ve stopped visiting the usual websites and forums. I kept reading them longer than I should have. I was in denial. I thought it would blow over like NFTs or "Web3". I still thought I was among my people and my culture.

This is what I went through last year. I've thought of myself as a software developer who wrote as a part of his craft, but in December a bit flipped in my head and I started to see myself as a writer and photographer who happens to do dev work to pay the bills.

I've cleared out around 90% of the feeds in my feed reader and have been reviewing my social media in stages. I still follow people whose ideas I enjoy but the plan is to unfollow the rest.

Have I hardened against LLMs?: https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/have-i-hardened-against-ai/