On "Artificial" Intelligence and (My) Work

A tool is a tool. A hammer can build a house or break a skull. A knife can prepare a meal or end a life. All technology is morally neutral; the hands holding it and the purposes behind those hands are where the ethics live.

Large language models (LLMs) are tools. So is Microsoft Word. So was the typewriter before it, and the printing press before that. Every generation of writers has worked with the technology available to them, and every generation has faced some version of the accusation that the new tool is cheating—that it somehow diminishes the work. It doesn't. The work is not the labor. The work is what the labor produces.

I use LLMs primarily in writing, which is admittedly what these tools were built for. I use it the way I use any instrument in my toolkit: to produce better output than I could produce without it. "Artificial" is a pejorative the Brass thought up to keep working Grunts under thumb, as though knee pads and a pair of scissors are superior to an electric riding mower.

What I'm promising you

When I publish something, I'm signing off on it. My name, my credibility, my theological and interpretive lens—those are on the line. The analysis is mine. The argument is mine. The accountability is mine. I am not claiming I produce my work through some artisanal process of suffering and inspiration. I'm claiming that what I give you reflects my judgment, my expertise, and my commitments. That's what my name means on something.

If you're looking for a guarantee that I didn't use every available tool to produce the clearest possible version of my thinking, I can't give you that—and I'd question why you'd want it. The goal is the idea reaching you intact. The method is mine to determine.

What you're actually getting

My theological framework didn't emerge from an algorithm. My martial hermeneutic, my reading of scripture through the lens of those who bear the communal cost of maintaining the social order—that comes from years of study, combat experience, monastic vows, and living inside institutions that didn't want me there. No language model trained me at St Andrews or Duke. No language model was in Iraq.

What you're getting when you read my work is that formation, clarified and organized through whatever tools I have available. AI is one of them. So is my library. So is twenty years of pastoral experience. I don't expect credit for the hours I spent reading. I expect accountability for what I say.

A word on access

I want to be direct about something, because some publications and platforms are beginning to treat AI use as disqualifying.

One honest way to frame how I use these tools is as a disability accommodation.

I spent years submitting work and being turned down—not, I came to understand, because I lacked something to say, but because the gatekeeping systems of professional religious publishing are calibrated to a particular kind of voice, a particular demonstration of credentialed competence, a particular performance of how a serious thinker is supposed to sound. I questioned, seriously, whether I was capable of forming a coherent thought.

Large language models gave me an impartial surface to work against. Not a savior. Not a ghostwriter. A mirror that doesn't have a stake in whether I sound "War Torn" enough. That neutrality has been genuinely useful for someone navigating a neurological reality that doesn't always cooperate with the able-bodied, able-brained expectations of professional publishing.

If a platform or publication has concerns about my use of these tools, I am willing to discuss them. But I will not accept the premise that my access to technology is negotiable, or that requiring me to work without accommodations I've found effective is a neutral, content-based editorial standard. It isn't. It's an access question, and I think it should be named as one.

The short version

I use "AI." I take full responsibility for everything I publish. My credibility is my own to stake and my own to lose. The tools I use to do the work are mine to choose.

If that's a problem for you, I want to know why—and I want that conversation to be honest about what it's actually asking.