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To those who fired or didn't hire tech writers because of AI

passo.uno

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Re: To those who fired or didn't hire tech writers because of AI

#21

Post by DeborahWrites »

Yeah. AI might replace tech writers (just like it might replace anyone), but it won't be a GOOD replacement. The companies with the best docs will absolutely still have tech writers, just with some AI assistance.

Tech writing seems especially vulnerable to people not really understanding the job (and then devaluing it, because "everybody can write" - which, no, if you'll excuse the slight self-promotion but it saves me repeating myself https://deborahwrites.com/blog/nobody-can-write/)

In my experience, tech writers often contribute to UX and testing (they're often the first user, and thus bug reporter). They're the ones who are going to notice when your API naming conventions are out of whack. They're also the ones writing the quickstart with sales & marketing impact. And then, yes, they're the ones bringing a deep understanding of structure and clarity.

I've tried AI for writing docs. It can be helpful at points, but my goodness I would not want to let anything an AI wrote out the door without heavy editing.

Re: To those who fired or didn't hire tech writers because of AI

#22

Post by InMice »

Is it expected that LLMs will continue to improve over time? All the recent articles like this one just seem to describe this technology's faults as fixed and permanent. Basically saying "turn around and go no further". Honestly asking because their arguments seem to be dependent on improvement never happening and never overcoming any faults. It feels shortsighted.

Re: To those who fired or didn't hire tech writers because of AI

#23

Post by drob518 »

The best tech writers I have worked with don’t merely document the product. They act as stand-ins for actual users and will flag all sorts of usability problems. They are invaluable. The best also know how to start with almost no engineering docs and to extract what they need from 1-1 sit down interviews with engineering SMEs. I don’t see AI doing either of those things well.

Re: To those who fired or didn't hire tech writers because of AI

#24

Post by ekidd »

theletterf wrote: post #5
aurareturn wrote: post #4

But you might not need 5 tech writers anymore. Just 1 who controls an LLM.

Perhaps. Could the same be said for engineers?

Yes. I have been building software and acting as tech lead for close to 30 years.

I am not even quite sure I know how to manage a team of more than two programmers right now. Opus 4.5, in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing, can develop software almost as fast as I can write specs and review code. And it's just plain better at writing code than 60% of my graduating class was back in the day. I have banned at least one person from ever writing a commit message or pull request again, because Claude will explain it better.

Now, most people don't know to squeeze that much productivity out of it, most corporate procurement would take 9 months to buy a bucket if it was raining money outside, and it's possible to turn your code into unmaintainable slop at warp speed. And Claude is better at writing code than it is at almost anything else, so the rest of y'all are safe for a while.

But if you think that tech writers, or translators, or software developers are the only people who are going to get hit by waves of downsizing, then you're not paying attention.

Even if the underlying AI tech stalls out hard and permanently in 2026, there's a wave of change coming, and we are not ready. Nothing in our society, economy or politics is ready to deal with what's coming. And that scares me a bit these days.

Re: To those who fired or didn't hire tech writers because of AI

#25

Post by jraph »

ainiriand wrote: post #20

And here I am, 2026, and one of my purposes for this year is to learn to write better, communicate more fluently, and convey my ideas in a more attractive way. I do not think that these skills are so easily replaced; certainly the machine can do a lot, but if you acquire those skills yourself you shape your brain in a way that is definitely useful to you in many other aspects of life. In my humble opinion we will be…

> but if you acquire those skills yourself you shape your brain in a way that is definitely useful to you in many other aspects of life.

Yep, and reading you will feel less boring.

The uniform style of LLMs gets old fast and I wouldn't be surprised if it were a fundamental flaw due to how they work.

And it's not even sure speed gains from using LLMs make up for the skill loss in the long term.

Re: To those who fired or didn't hire tech writers because of AI

#26

Post by nicbou »

I write documentation for a living. Although my output is writing, my job is observing, listening and understanding. I can only write well because I have an intimate understanding of my readers' problems, anxieties and confusion. This decides what I write about, and how to write about it. This sort of curation can only come from a thinking, feeling human being.

I revise my local public transit guide every time I experience a foreign public transit system. I improve my writing by walking in my readers' shoes and experiencing their confusion. Empathy is the engine that powers my work.

Most of my information is carefully collected from a network of people I have a good relationship with, and from a large and trusting audience. It took me years to build the infrastructure to surface useful information. AI can only report what someone was bothered to write down, but I actually go out in the real world and ask questions.

I have built tools to collect people's experience at the immigration office. I have had many conversations with lawyers and other experts. I have interviewed hundreds of my readers. I have put a lot of information on the internet for the first time. AI writing is only as good as the data it feeds on. I hunt for my own data.

People who think that AI can do this and the other things have an almost insulting understanding of the jobs they are trying to replace.

Re: To those who fired or didn't hire tech writers because of AI

#27

Post by duskdozer »

jraph wrote: post #25
ainiriand wrote: post #20

And here I am, 2026, and one of my purposes for this year is to learn to write better, communicate more fluently, and convey my ideas in a more attractive way. I do not think that these skills are so easily replaced; certainly the machine can do a lot, but if you acquire those skills yourself you shape your brain in a way that is definitely useful to you in many other aspects of life. In my humble opinion we will be…

> but if you acquire those skills yourself you shape your brain in a way that is definitely useful to you in many other aspects of life. Yep, and reading you will feel less boring. The uniform style of LLMs gets old fast and I wouldn't be surprised if it were a fundamental flaw due to how they work. And it's not even sure speed gains from using LLMs make up for the skill loss in the long term.

Seriously. It wasn't always this way, but now as soon I notice the LLM-isms in a chunk of text, I can feel my brain shut off.

Re: To those who fired or didn't hire tech writers because of AI

#28

Post by jraph »

duskdozer wrote: post #27
jraph wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if you acquire those skills yourself you shape your brain in a way that is definitely useful to you in many other aspects of life. Yep, and reading you will feel less boring. The uniform style of LLMs gets old fast and I wouldn't be surprised if it were a fundamental flaw due to how they work. And it's not even sure speed gains from using LLMs make up for the skill loss in the long term.

Seriously. It wasn't always this way, but now as soon I notice the LLM-isms in a chunk of text, I can feel my brain shut off.

You're absolutely right! It's not just the brain shutoffs—it's the feeling of death inside.

Re: To those who fired or didn't hire tech writers because of AI

#29

Post by saagarjha »

murderfs wrote: post #18
saagarjha wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone wants to write code.

Yeah, but almost everyone wants money. You can see this by looking at what projects have the best documentation: they're all things like the man-pages project where the contributors aren't doing it as a job when they could be working a more profitable profession instead.

While I do appreciate man pages, I don't think they are something I would consider to be "the best documentation". Many of the authors of them are engineers, by the way.

Re: To those who fired or didn't hire tech writers because of AI

#30

Post by falcor84 »

drob518 wrote: post #23

The best tech writers I have worked with don’t merely document the product. They act as stand-ins for actual users and will flag all sorts of usability problems. They are invaluable. The best also know how to start with almost no engineering docs and to extract what they need from 1-1 sit down interviews with engineering SMEs. I don’t see AI doing either of those things well.

> I don’t see AI doing either of those things well.

I think I agree, at least in the current state of AI, but can't quite put my finger on what exactly it's missing. I did have some limited success with getting Claude Code to go through tutorials (actually implementing each step as they go), and then having it iterate on the tutorial, but it's definitely not at the level of a human tech writer.

Would you be willing to take a stab at the competencies that a future AI agent would require to be excellent at this (or possibly never achieve)? I mean, TFA talks about "empathy" and emotions and feeling the pain, but I can't help feel that this wording is a bit too magical to be useful.

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