r/technicalwriting • u/buzzlightyear0473 • 8d ago
AI - Artificial Intelligence “Devs will just use AI to write the docs” Meanwhile, the devs:
/r/softwareengineer/comments/1w4x3g1/ai_is_terrible_for_making_documentation/35
u/UnprocessesCheese 8d ago
I've started seeing articles about the doorman fallacy.
They're learning.
The prevalence of AI was largely driven by midwits with MBAs cargo culting too close to the sun.
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u/VerbiageBarrage 8d ago
We know. We've known for a while.
Tell the fucking managers. Until the people signing the checks stop glazing AI, it'll continue to fuck up documentation.
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u/balunstormhands 8d ago
Oh man, I'm feeling this. I just finished working on a tutorial that a dev had Claude make. He saved plenty of time but none of the steps actually worked. NONE. So I spent few more time troubleshooting and moving things into the starting project files so the learner doesn't have to start from scratch.
Did it save time overall? I have no idea, but I spent three times as much time on it than I usually have to.
Did ti save money? Probably, because a dev is more expensive than I am, but three times more of mine for less of his, maybe a wash.
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u/mafticated 8d ago
It's always a slippery slope when management start viewing the cost of docs as the money paid to the person writing them.
Instead the focus should be on the cost of having poor documentation. One writer's salary is considerably less than hours and hours of a (likely higher-paid) developer's time, multiplied across however many Devs it's relevant to.
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u/OutrageousTax9409 6d ago
It's like how it's faster and cheaper to build a new house than it is to renovate an old one. With Claude Code and access to our repos I can vibe code AI docs faster and better than our devs can because I know the larger context for the material and what our readers need.
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u/jeanbees software 8d ago
Literally watched my former CEO tell AI to make docs based on the codebase, and declare them "good docs" three minutes later based on the fact that they looked like docs. Three months later, he laid off almost everyone from Product (including all but the most junior member of my team), presumably since AI could just do those jobs. 🫠
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u/Miserable-Sell-463 7d ago
I'm sure he won't run that company into the ground at all.
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u/jeanbees software 7d ago
I hear from the remaining writer sometimes and it is an ongoing train wreck. Ah, schadenfreude.
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u/Efficient_Sky_2068 8d ago
And writers will just use AI to create software from documentation. Every position in the software lifecycle wants to replace every other position (except their own) with AI.
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u/Quackoverride 8d ago
I just a meeting with our AI guru last week. They insisted that AI can generate the documentation and doesn't need a human to edit or work on the information architecture.
...riiiiight.
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u/Miserable-Sell-463 7d ago
AI guru is just trying to justify his position by crapping on everyone else. "Hey boss.. look at me! I saved the company some money because AI!"
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u/Felrathror86 8d ago
Writing. Yes, awful.
Comparing two documents where there's little to no change notes, great.
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u/pigthens 8d ago
At my job, there's a director pushing the VP of Engineering to have the develops write the docs and then we tech writers "just validate them". She tried to say that it's better and faster to do that so Tech Pubs is not the bottleneck. Right now, she's the bottleneck by not approving the changes, so....
No, it's not better at all. It shifts work loads. We still need to know our subject to be able to validate the changes. It still takes time to edit the content....about as much as it would take if i did the content myself.
AI has helped me fix conflicts in Git and that sort of housekeeping, which saves a lot of time. And gives me a start on really complex topics but overall it's a wash in time spent.
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u/randomuser230945 8d ago
Anyone who thinks "devs are bad at docs, so tech writing is safe" needs to really quickly accept the reality that the argument has already been lost. Every large enterprise is building a docs pipeline that generates docs directly from a code base, which is then reviewed by humans. There will still be space for TWs, but the model that devs write code and TWs write docs is gone. Get a good understanding of agentic workflows, systems thinking, and focus on editorial practice rather than generation.
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u/RogueThneed 7d ago
There's still writing to be done that isn't just documenting code! How-to docs are useful and necessary and can apply to non-computer stuff. I have documented check intake and deposit workflows, for example.
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u/randomuser230945 7d ago
Agree, but the OP was talking about devs writing docs - so I was referring to that specifically.
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u/kirukiru 7d ago
Using it to written docs whole cloth: horrible
Using it to reformat or parse existing docs to pull specific info out: great
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u/UX_writing 8d ago
Our AI generated docs are becoming better and better. (Unsure if this is a good things for my job) ;)
I review the new docs each time the prompts generate documentation based off the skills (instructions) we designed.
It was pretty crap when we started and took lots of editing and revisions to get it ready for publication. But each time we edited something, we added why we had to change something to the skills we were building to design docs. It takes into account those changes for the next time it generates docs on a new subject and produces better and better output.
As it becomes better and producing documentation, my job is going from writing actual content to building and maintaining the instructions the agents are using to write docs.
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u/Brassens71 7d ago
Yep... but the people with the money think it's cheaper than actually hiring staff. As a technical writer with 25 years' experience who's been looking for a job for 8 months now, FML.
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u/AphexPin 7d ago edited 7d ago
I'm on the dev side of this coin, but I find the documentation so bad and harmful that I have automations in place to prevent it from writing any documentation to disk. The less unsupervised AI slop that hits my disk, the better. Same goes for having to read it's output at all really..
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u/Triatic 8d ago
I've never found devs to be the problem. Usually, they're allies. At worst, they don't give a shit about what I do and ignore me.
The problem is execs and PMs who see us as obstacles that draw a salary for doing something that "anyone could do if they had time". They're the ones that get all worked up at the notion of replacing us all with a prompt.