Don’t worry, this isn’t the usual post about AI and it stealing everyone’s content. That’s true, of course, but this post is a bit different — although still AI-adjacent.

As is customary around this time of year, I start to think about my goals for the following year and, more importantly, the tools I am going to use to get to them. I usually start with digital things because my analogue choices are far easier and much more enjoyable. The first thing on my list is typically my note-taking and writing app.

After going around the houses more than a few times, it all boils down to two really — iA Writer and Ulysses. I always end up sticking with the tried and true on Ulysses, but there are a few features that I really like on iA Writer. The developers really think about what their app needs to do, but also how its usage affects the web as a whole. The best reflection of their shared thinking is arguably one of the best features I have seen for a long time, Authorship.

Born of a desire to see version control like changes, Authorship saves the state of your document, and then anything you pasted in is shown as dimmed. Keeping tabs on what you actually wrote and what has been appropriated is beneficial when researching topics and ensures you reference all of your work correctly. However, it goes much deeper than this when viewed in a world full of Ai.

It also remembers what ChatGPT wrote for you, and now with the launch of writing tools on Apple devices, what Apple Intelligence changed during a proofread. Why this doesn’t exist at an OS level I am not sure, but this has proved invaluable for me already, and means, of course, I am experimenting again — at least to see how good (or not) Apple Intelligence is.

I love the fact that the iA Writer developers have thought to develop a feature that should exist everywhere. I often wanted to see changes editors made to my writing before publishing but couldn’t be bothered to compare it in depth. That is how you become a better writer. Perhaps this information should be transferable to the webpage on publish?

I’m happy for readers to see what I wrote and what the super-intelligent spell check updated for me. I might launch it as a comedy B-side. With this said, I do feel that there’s some responsibility for those that post to the internet and particularly bloggers to ensure what they are posting is their own work. Removing all the arguments that LLMs stole all of our work, it still rests on our shoulders to ensure the web we all know and love remains genuine.

I would love to find a way we could ensure that the people we follow, and possibly even support, have full authorship. It might be words, or photos or increasingly video that AI muscles into, and I would rather not live in a world where we are not sure if you created what you post or not. We place a lot of trust in the things we consume online and with entertainment being provided increasingly by sole creators it would be nice to know it was all their own work.