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### Recent posts from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance series[](#recent-posts-from-zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance-seri)

*   [The importance of using the right tools](/zamm/importance-of-using-right-tools.html) (Nov 26, 2023)

*   [Bleeding my brakes (ZAMM series)](/zamm/bleeding-my-brakes-inner-calm.html) (Nov 26, 2023)

*   [Main takeaway: How to incorporate intuitive thinking (ZAMM series)](/zamm/incorporating-intuitive-thinking.html) (Dec 1, 2023)

*   [Seeing invisible details and avoiding predictable, conditioned thought](/zamm/seeing-invisible-details-avoiding-predictable-thought.html) (Jun 26, 2024)

*   [Why I decided to reread Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM series)](/zamm/why-reread-zen-and-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.html) (Nov 26, 2023)

### Recent posts from my AI tech comm series[](#recent-posts-from-my-ai-tech-comm-series)

*   [Use cases for AI: Synthesize insights from granular data](/ai/docapis_thematic_analysis.html) (Aug 27, 2023)

*   [Use cases for AI: Arrange content into information type patterns](/ai/docapis_pattern_prompts.html) (Jul 6, 2023)

*   [Use cases for AI: Develop build and publishing scripts](/ai/ai-tools-build-publish-api-docs.html) (Jul 19, 2023)

*   [AI and APIs: What works, what doesn't](/ai/docapis_ai_what_works_and_doesnt.html) (Sep 28, 2023)

*   [Use cases for AI: Summarize long content](/ai/docapis_ai_summaries.html) (Sep 6, 2023)

*   [Use cases for AI: Understand the meaning of code](/ai/docapis_ai_learn_coding.html) (Jul 25, 2023)

*   [Use cases for AI: Seek advice on grammar and style](/ai/docapis_ai_language_advice.html) (Aug 4, 2023)

*   [Use cases for AI: Create glossary definitions](/ai/docapis_ai_glossary_definitions.html) (Sep 4, 2023)

*   [Use cases for AI: Distill needed updates from bug threads](/ai/docapis_ai_fix_bugs.html) (Aug 6, 2023)

*   [Use cases for AI: Compare API responses to identify discrepancies](/ai/docapis_ai_comparison_tasks.html) (Aug 28, 2023)

### Recent blog posts[](#recent-blog-posts)

*   [Book review of Jonathan Warner's book _More Than Words: How to think about writing in the age of AI_](/blog/jonathan-warner-more-than-words-book-review) (Mar 20, 2025)

*   [Book review of Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, by Ben Goldfarb](/blog/book-review-crossings-ben-goldfarb) (Mar 11, 2025)

*   [I'm starting an AI Book Club](/blog/ai-book-club-human-in-the-loop) (Mar 11, 2025)

*   [Countering AGI with superintelligent docs?](/blog/superintelligent-docs) (Mar 9, 2025)

*   [Links from around the web: vibecoding, 60-hour work weeks, smaller internet communities, ethical compromises, and expertise](/blog/links-vibecoding-60-hours-small-communities) (Mar 2, 2025)

*   [Do developers need code samples in API documentation?](/blog/code-samples-might-not-be-needed-anymore) (Mar 2, 2025)

*   [Fixing bugs without thinking, Recursive Self-Improvement, and the shift towards more complex tech comm tasks](/blog/recursive-self-improvement-complex-tasks) (Feb 24, 2025)

*   [Review of Divided Highways, by Tom Lewis — and some thoughts on techno-utopian disillusionment](/blog/divided-highways-technoutopian-disillusionment) (Feb 22, 2025)

*   [Rethinking traditional approaches to release notes -- recording of WTD Australia presentation](/blog/wtd-australia-release-notes-with-ai) (Feb 17, 2025)

*   [Is AI eroding slow mode? Push-button solutions versus thought partners, and approaches to challenging writing tasks](/blog/ai-eroding-slow-mode) (Feb 9, 2025)

### Popular series[](#popular-series)

*   [Reflections on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](/zamm/why-reread-zen-and-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.html)

*   [Journey away from smartphones](/smartphones/overview.html)

*   [Trends to follow or forget](/trends/trends-to-follow-or-forget-intro.html)

*   [Simplifying complexity](/simplifying-complexity/index.html)

*   [Value arguments for docs and tech comm](/2017/12/28/value-of-tech-comm-in-company-part1/)

*   [See all series](/series/)

### Archives[](#archives)

[2024](/archives-2024/) • [2023](/archives-2023/) • [2022](/archives-2022/) • [2021](/archives-2021/) • [2020](/archives-2020/) • [2019](/archives-2019/) • [2018](/archives-2018/) • [2017](/archives-2017/) • [2016](/archives-2016/) • [2015](/archives-2015/) • [2014](/archives-2014/) • [2013](/archives-2013/) • [2012](/archives-2012/) • [2011](/archives-2011/) • [2010](/archives-2010/) • [2009](/archives-2009/) • [2008](/archives-2008/) • [2007](/archives-2007/) • [2006](/archives-2006/) • [Posts by tag](/tags/) • [See all posts by year](/all/)

Search results[](#search-results)

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[Book review of Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, by Ben Goldfarb](/blog/book-review-crossings-ben-goldfarb)

Although I don’t work in road ecology or traffic engineering, the author somehow pulled me through 300 pages on this topic. He managed this not just through vivid language and diction, but by personally visiting places and telling stories about the specific challenges that animals, “carers,” forest service workers, and others faced as freeways and highways bisected and dissected their environments.

[Countering AGI with superintelligent docs?](/blog/superintelligent-docs#barista-analogy)

Barista analogy

To use an analogy, suppose you’re a barista making espresso coffee. An AGI-capable robot trained as a barista is able to make all the coffee that a regular barista can make but twice as fast. Further, the Android barista can create exquisite espresso art in any shape that humans request, wowing them and making the experience novel. Soon the human barista is replaced. After all, the paying customer would rather pay $2.50 for a robot to make a latte instead of $5.00, especially when it tastes the same.

[Do developers need code samples in API documentation?](/blog/code-samples-might-not-be-needed-anymore)

Most code samples in documentation are fairly basic, which is by design. Documentation tries to show the most common use of the API, not advanced scenarios for an enterprise-grade app whose complexity would easily overwhelm developers. (At that point, you end up with a sample app.)

[Links from around the web: vibecoding, 60-hour work weeks, smaller internet communities, ethical compromises, and expertise](/blog/links-vibecoding-60-hours-small-communities#vibecoding)

Vibecoding

Not a Coder? With A.I., Just Having an Idea Can Be Enough. By Kevin Roose, New York Times, Feb 27, 2025.

[Fixing bugs without thinking, Recursive Self-Improvement, and the shift towards more complex tech comm tasks](/blog/recursive-self-improvement-complex-tasks#fixing-bugs-without-thinking)

Fixing bugs without thinking

With AI tools built directly into your authoring tool or IDE (such as VS Code), fixing simple doc bugs can become a mechanical, click-button task. Here’s the approach to fixing simple doc bugs:

[Review of Divided Highways, by Tom Lewis — and some thoughts on techno-utopian disillusionment](/blog/divided-highways-technoutopian-disillusionment)

(Note: The fact that I’m writing a book review on this topic might seem odd given that I usually focus on tech comm topics. However, I document APIs for getting map data into cars, so I sometimes read books related to the automotive and transportation domain. I also run a book club at work focused on these books.)

[Rethinking traditional approaches to release notes -- recording of WTD Australia presentation](/blog/wtd-australia-release-notes-with-ai)

Listen here:

[Is AI eroding slow mode? Push-button solutions versus thought partners, and approaches to challenging writing tasks](/blog/ai-eroding-slow-mode#is-ai-eroding-slow-mode)

Is AI eroding slow mode?

During the past few weeks, I’ve felt like my brain’s RPMs have been in the red zone. Granted, the constant stream of chaotic political news hasn’t helped—but regardless of current political events, I’m frequently checking the news, my email, and chat messages and operating in a mode that isn’t great. Reading long-form books has proven to be difficult. I run a book club at work focused on automotive and transportation books, and it took me two months to make it through a single book (granted, it was a 300-page historically dense book, but still). 

[Using AI with issue tracking systems (prompt engineering series)](/blog/use-ai-with-issue-trackers-prompt-eng)

Read the full article here: Using AI with issue tracking systems.

[My 2025 trends predictions for tech comm](/blog/trends-predictions-2025-tech-comm)

This post is also available as an AI-generated podcast from NotebookLM:

[Using AI to mine log messages from reference doc builds (Prompt engineering series)](/blog/use-ai-to-mine-log-messages)

Read the post: Using AI to mine log messages from reference doc builds.

[Biohacking your glucose with AI](/blog/biohacking-your-glucose-with-ai#biohacking-experiment)

Biohacking experiment

“Biohacking” might be a pretentious cyber term for what is otherwise a straightforward experiment. For 10 days, I tracked my food and exercise levels while also wearing a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to track my glucose levels. I then used AI to pair up the food + exercise with the glucose readings and perform an analysis about triggers for glucose spikes and recommendations to avoid them.

[AI stream journaling experiment](/blog/ai-stream-journaling-experiment#the-prompt)

The prompt

I want you to act as my AI stream journal (similar to a bullet journal), for the day. In this chat session, I’ll log 3 kinds of notes: tasks, thoughts, and events. Tasks are to-do list items. Thoughts are random ideas or notes I have. Events consist of food eaten, exercise, or descriptions of my internal states. The point is to have an easy way to dump all the scattered information in my head into a central log that you organize and analyze on my behalf.

[Q&A about adoc Studio, with Frank Blome](/blog/adoc-studio-qa-with-frank-blome)

Note: This is a sponsored post.

[Q&A about Paligo -- modern CCMS -- with VP of Product Rasmus Petersson](/blog/paligo-modern-ccm-question-answer-rasmus-petersson)

Note: This is a sponsored post.

I'd Rather Be Writing blog

==========================

[Book review of Jonathan Warner's book _More Than Words: How to think about writing in the age of AI_](/blog/jonathan-warner-more-than-words-book-review)

Mar 20, 2025 • [ai](/category-ai), [writing](/category-writing)

Jonathan Warner's book More Than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI is a spirited defense about the value and humanity of writing without AI at a time when AI promises to replace many writing activities. Warner argues that writing involves thinking and feeling, and as we grapple with ways to identify, express, and articulate our ideas in writing, it's an experience that changes who we are.

[Book review of Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, by Ben Goldfarb](/blog/book-review-crossings-ben-goldfarb)

Mar 11, 2025 • [book-reviews](/category-book-reviews)

Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, by Ben Goldfarb, is a richly descriptive work of investigative journalism exploring the topic of road ecology, which looks at how roads impact their surrounding environment. More specifically, road ecology is "'the study of how 'life change\[s\] for plants and animals with a road and traffic nearby'" (6).

[I'm starting an AI Book Club](/blog/ai-book-club-human-in-the-loop)

Mar 11, 2025 • [ai](/category-ai)

I'm starting an book club called AI Book Club: A Human in the Loop. As you might expect, the book club involves reading and discussing books about AI on a regular basis. The book club will meet online, currently planned for the third Sunday of each month at 10 am Pacific Time (Seattle's time zone). There are some async chat options through Slack as well, and we'll record the meetings. Check it out at AI Book Club: A Human in the Loop. If you've been looking to read more (or get back into reading) while also increasing your understanding of AI, this club could be a good fit.

[Countering AGI with superintelligent docs?](/blog/superintelligent-docs)

Mar 9, 2025 • [ai](/category-ai)

While AGI refers to performing tasks at a human level, superintelligence refers to performing tasks that exceed human capabilities. If tech writers want to survive the AI apocalypse, we'll have to go beyond mere AGI levels of competence and tread water within the superintelligent space.Reason being, AI will eventually replace most of what we do, making it such that when AGI is reached, job displacement for tech writers will be more common because AGI will perform the same tasks, only cheaper. But the likelihood of AGI progressing to Superintelligence seems less likely to me (in the same way that moving from assisted driving to fully autonomous driving is so much harder than anyone anticipated). Striving for superintelligent docs seems like the most logical counter-move against AI's encroachment on tech writer territory.

[Links from around the web: vibecoding, 60-hour work weeks, smaller internet communities, ethical compromises, and expertise](/blog/links-vibecoding-60-hours-small-communities)

Mar 2, 2025 • [ai](/category-ai), [technical-writing](/category-technical-writing), [writing](/category-writing)

This post is a compilation of various thoughts and responses to articles I find interesting. I decided to compile these into a single post, similar to a News and notes style rather than separating them into individual articles.

[Do developers need code samples in API documentation?](/blog/code-samples-might-not-be-needed-anymore)

Mar 2, 2025 • [ai](/category-ai), [api-doc](/category-api-doc), [technical-writing](/category-technical-writing)

Although code samples have long been a staple in API documentation, I'm not sure users need them that much. Many developers now use AI tools that can generate the same basic code samples that are commonly provided in documentation. If these same developers pass in either the source files or reference documentation, AI tools can generate the code samples they need in the language they want, and better yet, tailored to their project and business context.

[Fixing bugs without thinking, Recursive Self-Improvement, and the shift towards more complex tech comm tasks](/blog/recursive-self-improvement-complex-tasks)

Feb 24, 2025 • [ai](/category-ai), [writing](/category-writing)

This post includes a mix of various thoughts on AI, including fixing bugs without thinking, competitive pressures to adopt AI workflows, risks of atrophied critical thinking, recursive self improvement, and the shift toward more complex tech comm tasks. There's not necessarily an argument throughline here, just various thoughts and perspectives on AI topics in my tech comm world.

[Review of Divided Highways, by Tom Lewis — and some thoughts on techno-utopian disillusionment](/blog/divided-highways-technoutopian-disillusionment)

Feb 22, 2025 • [ai](/category-ai)

Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life, by Tom Lewis (2013), tells the history of how the US Interstate Highway System (IHS) was built. This monumental project, initiated in 1956 under President Eisenhower, spanned decades and multiple administrations before finally reaching completion in 1992. The project encompassed over 46,000 miles of roadways, a network longer than the circumference of the Earth. The final cost, adjusted for inflation, was more than $600 billion.

[Rethinking traditional approaches to release notes -- recording of WTD Australia presentation](/blog/wtd-australia-release-notes-with-ai)

Feb 17, 2025 • [ai](/category-ai), [api-doc](/category-api-doc), [wtd-podcasts](/category-wtd-podcasts), [writing](/category-writing), [podcasts](/category-podcasts)

I gave a presentation to the Write the Docs Australia group on using AI to write release notes using file diffs, on Feb 16, 2025. Here's the recording, presentation description, and transcript.

[Is AI eroding slow mode? Push-button solutions versus thought partners, and approaches to challenging writing tasks](/blog/ai-eroding-slow-mode)

Feb 9, 2025 • [ai](/category-ai), [writing](/category-writing)

This week's post on AI and tech comm includes a collection of related topics: Is AI eroding slow mode? Push-button solutions versus thought partners, and strategies for challenging writing tasks

[Using AI with issue tracking systems (prompt engineering series)](/blog/use-ai-with-issue-trackers-prompt-eng)

Jan 26, 2025 • [ai](/category-ai)

To make a somewhat strange analogy, I think that issue tracking systems are like the intestines of an IT organization—through these channels, nearly all information flows: bugs, iterations, priorities, user issues, release blockers, needed information, and more. For this reason, this series on prompt engineering would be incomplete if I didn't examine whether and how AI techniques could be used as technical writers work within these channels.

[My 2025 trends predictions for tech comm](/blog/trends-predictions-2025-tech-comm)

Jan 5, 2025 • [ai](/category-ai), [podcasts](/category-podcasts)

It's that time of year again when we take to analyzing trends. If you know me, you're probably gearing up for a load of AI-optimistic predictions because, as I've noted in previous posts like Unpacking the issues from AI, I'm an AI optimist. However, my AI optimism isn't based on hype or the current tech zeitgeist. Rather, I'm an AI optimist because my daily experiences using AI for technical documentation, especially API docs, throughout 2024 has shown it to be invaluable.

[Using AI to mine log messages from reference doc builds (Prompt engineering series)](/blog/use-ai-to-mine-log-messages)

Dec 19, 2024 • [ai](/category-ai)

I added a new post on my Prompt engineering series about using AI to mine log messages. This post describes how to use AI to identify important information from scripts that build your reference docs—information such as warnings about missing documentation or deviations from engineering style. These log messages often whiz by in the terminal during builds, even when those builds are successful. It would be tedious to try to manually read the extensive logs and find relevant messages. AI can help turn the logs into actionable information, identifying warnings about missing documentation.

[AI stream journaling experiment](/blog/ai-stream-journaling-experiment)

Dec 17, 2024 • [ai](/category-ai)

After my post on Biohacking your glucose with AI, I had another thought: what if I didn't just log food + exercise + energy levels, etc., but also tasks, thoughts, observations, or other notes? I learned that this kind of all-in-one journal is often called a bullet journal—which is an officially trademarked term for Ryder Carroll's bullet journaling methodology, often shortened to Bujo. Carroll has detailed methodologies for organizing, tagging, and managing information in a journal that's far beyond the scope for how I'm using the term. So to avoid conflating my approach with bullet journaling, I'm calling my technique here an AI stream journal. Mainly, I just wanted a single place where I could jot down the stream of information flowing through my mind and have AI sort and organize it for me.

[Biohacking your glucose with AI](/blog/biohacking-your-glucose-with-ai)

Dec 17, 2024 • [ai](/category-ai)

In this post, I stray slightly outside my normal tech comm focus to explore strategies for personal optimization, specifically with biohacking your glucose with AI. Some of these techniques could apply to tech comm, such as in analyzing user analytics, but that isn't something I've tackled yet. In short, I'm experimenting with using AI tools to adopt healthier habits so that I feel better and am more productive throughout the day. Specifically, I'm exploring ways to hack your glucose using AI to analyze logs.

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About Tom Johnson[](#about-tom-johnson)

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I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my [API documentation course](/learnapidoc/) if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my [posts on AI](/category-ai/) and [AI course section](/ai/index.html) for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.

If you're a technical writer and want to keep on top of the latest trends in the tech comm, be sure to subscribe to email updates below. You can also [learn more about me](/aboutme/) or [contact me](/contact/). Finally, note that the opinions I express on my blog are my own points of view, not that of my employer.

© 2024 Tom Johnson