Give it a rest.

What's happening is that AI has become an identity-sorting mechanism faster than any technology in recent memory. Faster than social media, faster than smartphones. Within about two years, "what do you think about AI" became a tribal marker on par with political affiliation. And like political affiliation, the actual object-level question ("is this tool useful for this task") got completely swallowed by the identity question ("what kind of person uses/rejects this").

The blog author isn't really angry about the comment. He's angry because someone accidentally miscategorized him tribally. "Did you use AI?" heard through his filter means "you're one of them." Same reason vegans get mad when you assume they eat meat, or whatever. It's an identity boundary violation, not a practical dispute.

These comments aren't discussing the post. They're each doing a little ritual display of their own position in the sorting. "I miss real conversation" = I'm on the human side. The political rant = I'm on the progress side. The energy calculation = I'm on the rational-empiricist side.

The thing that's actually weird, the thing worth asking "what the fuck" about: this sorting happened before the technology matured enough for anyone to have a grounded opinion about its long-term effects. People picked teams based on vibes and aesthetics, and now they're backfilling justifications. Which means the discourse is almost completely decoupled from what the technology actually does or will do.

I appreciate and agree with your comment. The reasonable answer to "did you use AI" would be just "no". In the context of the story, the other person's intent is comparable to "did you run spell check?"

My personal nit/pet peeve: it is far more likely to meet a meat-eater who gets offended by the insinuation they're a vegan. I have met exactly one "militant vegan" in real life, compared to dozens who go out of their way to avoid inconveniencing others. I'm talking about people who bring their own food to a party rather than asking for a vegan option.

In the 21st century, the militant vegan more common as a hack comedian trope than a real phenomenon.

> the actual object-level question ("is this tool useful for this task")

That's not the only question worth asking though. It could be that the tool is useful, but has high negative externalities. In that case, the question "what kind of person uses/rejects this" is also worth considering. I think that if generative AI does have high negative externalities, then I'd like to be the kind of person that rejects it.

> Same reason vegans get mad when you assume they eat meat, or whatever

This so isn't important, but I don't know any vegan who would get mad if you assumed in passing that they ate meat. They'd only get annoyed if you then argued with them about it after they said something, like basically all humans do if you deliberately ignore what they've said to you.

> The blog author isn't really angry about the comment. He's angry because someone accidentally miscategorized him tribally.

I'm not so sure about that. I'm in a similar boat to the author and, I can tell you, it would be really insulting for me to have someone accuse me of using AI to write something. It's not because of any in-group / culture war nonsense, it's purely because:

a) I wouldn't—currently—resort to that behaviour, and I'd like to think people who know me recognise that

b) To have my work mistaken for the product of AI would be like being accused of not really being human—that's pretty insulting