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An AI book for my birthday: cordless drill instead of screwdriver

Summary

For my birthday I was given a book designed by an AI, with my photo on the cover and the title “Die Matrix ruft – Peter antwortet später” (“The Matrix is calling – Peter will answer later”). You might think an AI gift is impersonal, but the personal part lies in the idea, the photo and the punchline, not in setting the letters. This post explains why I see AI as a cordless drill and where the comparison still falls short.

The gift

The cover shows me in black and white, wearing a headset and holding a glass. Above it is my name, below it the title “Die Matrix ruft – Peter antwortet später” and the subtitle “Why a true IT nerd needs three minutes to react but solves problems in three seconds.” In the top right corner there is a sticker: “2026 National Bestseller”.

The subtitle is a punchline that only works because someone knows me well. That is exactly where the joke lies, and no AI can come up with it on its own.

Paperback with a black-and-white photo of Peter Grunert wearing a headset on the cover, title: Die Matrix ruft – Peter antwortet später
The birthday book, designed with AI.

Is that impersonal?

The first reflex at “AI-generated” is often: impersonal, mass-produced, no effort. I see it differently. A gift does not become personal through who sets the letters or builds the layout. It becomes personal through the idea, the chosen photo, the knowledge of the person and the punchline in the title. None of that came from the AI. The AI did the craftwork, just as a print shop or a photo book service used to.

Screwdriver and cordless drill

With a screwdriver you can drive in any screw. With a cordless drill it goes faster, and you have strength and time left for the rest of the project. Nobody would say that a shelf built with a cordless drill is any less home-made.

It has been the same with almost every tool of recent decades: pocket calculator, word processor, digital camera, satnav, search engine. Each time people said something would be lost. And each time, those who used the tool well came out ahead. Why should we give up an efficiency gain with AI of all things?

This website as an example

This site itself is a good example. It has around 850 posts, and since the beginning of October all of them are also available in English. On a single day, 5 October, I enriched almost 100 thin posts with background, context and recommendations with the help of AI. On my own, that would have taken weeks.

But I set the direction: which topics appear, which style rules apply, what gets cut and what I write myself. And AI results are checked. With Mark Benecke’s environmental talk, checking against the original sources revealed several overstated figures, and that is exactly what the post then says.

Where the comparison falls short

  • A cordless drill does not invent screws. An AI, however, can invent facts, and very convincingly. That is why checking remains human work; it is what I wrote my system prompt against people-pleasing AI for.
  • Sometimes the effort itself is the gift. A handwritten letter remains something different from a perfectly typeset text.
  • The “National Bestseller” sticker is a nice joke and incidentally shows how easily AI can fake credibility. On a real book cover, I would trust such a seal less today than I used to.

What you can take away

  • Use AI for the craftwork and keep the idea, the selection and the judgement for yourself.
  • Check every factual claim an AI makes against the source before passing it on.
  • Say openly when something was made with AI. A good result loses nothing by it.
  • Invest the time saved in what only you can do.

Numbers at a glance

  • The book is titled “Die Matrix ruft – Peter antwortet später”.
  • On 5 October 2026, almost 100 posts on this site were enriched with AI support.
  • Since October 2026, all of the site’s roughly 850 posts are also available in English.

References

Remarks

  • I will read the book on the last day of my birthday; this post only describes the cover and the idea.

My system prompt for honest AI

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