First, I would like to appreciate the folks who gave us well-intented feedback on UI. And we paused the plan to tweak the UI these days. No matter if people like the UI or not, we have to make sure the UI won't affect the readability of the content.
Then, I'd like to write down some thoughts from our journey building GizVault.
Originally, the idea was simple: make a cool shopping portal for hackers.
We're a group of old-school hackers from various fields. We love AAA games, especially cyberpunk, wasteland, and post-apocalyptic styles. One day, a question popped up: When you're playing a cyberpunk game or Fallout, you can always find shops selling cool stuff — even after doomsday. But in real life, no one seems to have seriously tried building something like that. So we did.
We created something cyberpunk-themed, with a highly customized CMS so we can publish product-related content in our own style. One day, the team said, “Hey, there’s a blog section — why don’t you write something interesting?” I'm not a native English speaker, so I fired up ChatGPT to help polish my words. We're not a media, but I do write many posts since last month we first launched the site. I got a bunch of feedback — some folks roasted me, saying it sounded like AI wrote it.
Was I angry? No. We got a lot of traffic due to these posts. There're always criticisms, but I think I can take it. I mean, I’m not a professional writer, just a developer and a gamer who likes to share ideas. I have to say sorry to AI, if people thought my posts as bad as their imaginary AI, it's my bad English, not AI's fault.
And yeah, AI helps a lot. I can just write in broken English or even a mix of ideas, and AI turns it into something readable. But here's the thing: AI can only go so far.
The illusion of"Fully Automatic"
A lot of people talk about full AI automation like it's some magic button:"Push this and you'll get a complete product." Reality check — it’s not like that. I tried using AI to write more articles, generate descriptions, even plan some content. But the results are generic unless you guide it very carefully.
You need to put your own flavor, your own context. Otherwise, it's just noise.
So, there's never so-called"effortless AI generated content" in real business. If someone insist on it, they're trolling, or never tried to make a real product.
The real cost
Funny enough, the biggest challenge wasn't AI at all. It was the humans. Once the site went live and people started using it, the real work began. Feedback started coming in. Some liked the UI, others were confused. Some had ideas we never considered.
That part — listening, replying, tweaking — you can’t automate that with AI. Maybe you can write a polite auto-reply, but real product evolution happens through human-driven conversations. It’s like slow-cooking. We human adjust taste bit by bit.
Also, PR (public relations) is underrated. Writing a nice update post, handling social media, or even replying to one comment meaningfully — that’s human work. And it matters a lot more than people think.
AI is the feature, not product
I’m not against AI. In fact, I use it almost daily now. But business is still business. You need trust, working systems, and real value delivery. If you go too fast, using bleeding-edge AI tech just because it's cool, things may break. Customers don’t like that. Stability and clarity still win.
We’re in an AI era now, and yes, we should embrace it. But not blindly.
Sometimes you just need a human to say: “Hey, this copy sounds weird.” Or “This part of the site is just confusing.” AI doesn’t use your product, humans do.
Are you scared?
So yeah, my takeaway so far is this: AI helps a lot, but it's not everything. The real value in software product design still comes from listening to people, improving bit by bit, and using AI where it fits — not where it doesn’t.
GizVault is still a work in progress. The CMS is fun, but as you may see, it's not Wordpress, and there're a lot of things behind. We'll throw them out when it's proper. With or without AI, the grind doesn’t change much. That's why I think AI is a just a feature.
Here’s an interesting story. A few days ago, as a modenn C++ suppoter since 2016, I wrote a hardcore post about C++: “Deep in Copy Constructor”. At first, it was well-received by people on Reddit. But then, a simple-minded moderator told me to go away because he thought it was AI slop. Hey dude — if that was AI, I’d say you should probably quit your job and never touch programming again. You’ve already done. Old-school, hardcore techniques are still the domain of humans. But honestly, I can feel it — I feel your fear. The fear rooted in your own lack of confidence.
I have no fear. And I hope more people can move forward without fear. Be excited about the future — there will be rewards.
Or, just quit you job, don't wait a second, just like a simple-minded.
