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🤖 The Historical Background Behind the Birth of the Gutenberg (Block) Editor
It was in December 2018, about eight years ago, when WordPress officially integrated Gutenberg (the block editor) as its standard feature.
At the time, it was widely welcomed as a “revolutionary editor that allows anyone to design intuitively without writing code.” But let’s take a quick look back at what AI was like back in 2018.
⏳ Behind the Scenes of Gutenberg’s Birth: Where Was AI Back Then?
In 2018, the mainstream AI in our daily lives consisted of smart speakers and voice assistants.
- “Alexa, turn on the lights.”
- “OK Google, tell me the weather.”
Back then, AI only responded to pre-determined commands. Having a complex conversation like “Fix this blog code” or “What do you think about this?” was nothing more than a pipe dream.
However, the groundbreaking technology behind today’s generative AI (the “Transformer” architecture) had actually just been published by Google the previous year, in 2017. Right when Gutenberg debuted in 2018, researchers were in the absolute thick of developing the next generation of AI.
Since then, tech history began moving at a mind-blowing speed.
- Late 2022: ChatGPT launched, sparking a massive global revolution.
- 2023: Google opened its conversational AI, “Bard,” to the public.
- 2024: The even smarter, upgraded Bard rebranded to what we now know as “Gemini.”
In just a few short years since Gutenberg became the standard for WordPress, the world of AI has evolved beyond anyone’s imagination.
🤖 Two Decisive Reasons Why Gutenberg Has Become a “Clog in the Wheel”
Now that generative AI can write highly advanced code for us, don’t you ever feel that this overly polite Gutenberg system has flipped around to become a clunky barrier?
We are right in the middle of a massive turning point in web development and blogging workflows. Let’s dive deep into two decisive reasons why Gutenberg becomes a major bottleneck when working with AI!
① The Reality: “It’s Simply Faster to Have AI Write Pure HTML/CSS”
In the past, the standard strategy to get your ideal design was to meticulously click and piece together Gutenberg blocks while stressing over layout nesting.
But today, we live in an era where you can just tell an AI, “Build me a decorative layout element with clean HTML and CSS that won’t break in my WordPress theme,” and it will output flawless, pure code in the blink of an eye.
- The Past: You had to struggle to learn Gutenberg’s block operations because you didn’t know how to code.
- The Present: You just snap a perfect, custom HTML code generated by AI right into a single block.
When things become this simple, it is only natural to feel that wasting time dragging mice around inside Gutenberg’s rigid constraints is a massive waste. Working with pure code gives you absolute freedom, and the job gets done in a fraction of the time.
② The Noise Caused by Gutenberg’s “Under-the-Hood” Code
While Gutenberg looks clean and visual on the front end, under the hood, it saves your data by generating a massive amount of unique comment-style tags (like <!-- wp:paragraph -->).
This turns out to be a huge obstacle when interacting with AI.
For instance, when you ask an AI to rewrite a whole post by passing the raw data, this messy, unique structure becomes major noise. It causes the AI to misinterpret the code or trigger analysis errors.
💡 The Bottom Line…
For seamless communication with AI, clean HTML or simple plain text without unnecessary fluff has an overwhelmingly superior compatibility.
Gutenberg was born as a savior for non-programmers. However, “in today’s world, where everyone has access to their own dedicated AI programmer,” that once-helpful system might actually be a wall that clips the wings of creators.
💬 Conclusion: And That Is Exactly Why I Welcome This “AI Era” with Open Arms!
I’ve been using WordPress since the very days Gutenberg first rolled out. To be honest, from the perspective of someone who had been writing in pure HTML code until then, the arrival of the block editor felt less like a “revolution” and more like an outright “rebellion” (laughs).
It was clunky, confusing, and forced everyone to relearn how to type from scratch. I kept thinking, “Who on earth would willingly want to use this?!”
That is exactly why, now that generative AI is here, the entire purpose of Gutenberg’s existence has shifted—and I am absolutely thrilled about it!
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