No, I do not publish AI-generated content.

Everything you read, see or hear on Broad History is human-made. I write every line and speak every word. The art isn't great because I can't make it or (yet) pay someone to make it. Until then, I use public domain images. There is no music or sound design because I cannot yet afford to buy it and I'm not using AI instead of a musician. (Become a member and help me hire folks.)

Why not?

First, it's ugly. The illustrations are bland, the writing is stale. Yes, it's gotten better but it is designed to revert everything to the mean. I think of it the way Norman Mailer talked about plastics. It's the regurgitated average of all human creation. It's... fine. Can you think of a worst insult?

I think when it comes to art and storytelling, being human is our unfair advantage. We don't write to have something written; we write because we have something to say. The very act of writing is the process of figuring out what that is. When we take shortcuts, our thinking remains shallow and disembodied.

On the other side of the page, we don't read text; we read inside another human's mind and we hope it somehow feels a little bit like what's in ours. The second I realise something is synthetic, even if it is technically "good", I lose all interest. What's the point?

I wouldn't mind it so much if gen AI was just another tool. But the economics of it are profoundly unfair and destructive. Many large language models are built on the theft of creatives' work. If we creatives don't stand up for one another, who will? It's much like GMOs; it's not the principle of it that bothers me as much as the reality of how it exists in the economy, who profits and who gets screwed. We are quickly destroying the already precarious economics of creative work, and we will all lose out. Starting with the AI barons who will run out of good stuff to steal.

Finally, it's important that you trust me, my work and history. I'm trying to tell you true stories about the past. Why muddy the waters with images that may or may not be real? You're grown-ups, I don't need to show you an AI Joan of Arc burning at the stake to get or keep your attention. Those "historical" AI videos you see on TikTok are so full of errors and mistaken assumptions about what the past looked like, they're not broadening access to historical knowledge, as their proponents pretend. They're a giant misinformation machine.

Where do you use AI?

For all these reasons, I resisted spending any money on an LLM subscription for as long as I could. Then I realised that I'm running an indie media company entirely on my own (and a solo media consultancy to pay my bills) in 2026 and I was shooting myself in the foot. I use AI where it is good, reliable and less ethically fraught – though I'll confess, still not entirely comfortable.

Ever since making my first podcast in 2020, I've used AI transcription and text-based editing to make my episodes, with software like Descript or Riverside. AI filters cut out ums and ahs and improve sound quality. The more vaunted AI features (auto-generating clips for social media, writing titles and show notes, even editing an entire episode on its own...) have never come close to my own editorial judgment. I try them sometimes – then change everything they did.

Where generative AI has been truly transformative for me is in the behind the scenes processes of running an indie media business. Claude has helped me code amazing things for this website I never could have done on my own. It saves me hours doing data analytics of my traffic or revenue and helps me keep on top of the business. It also let me build a project tracker that will crawl all nonfiction publishing catalogues, alert me of new relevant women's history books and send requests to publishers and authors in one-click (the email template is in my own words though). I also use Granola, with disclosure, to keep notes in all my meetings.

It's not all neat. I acknowledge these features were also made possible by the theft of creative work and are taking jobs from software engineers, project managers, transcribers... I wish I lived in a media era where I could make this programme with the support of a team and the security of a wage. I do not. We're all trying to navigate this world as best we can with what moral compass we've got. Mine says, for the moment, to use AI only in the background where it can free my time to be more human and more creative. I hope this works for you.