When Open AI introduced Chapt GPT on November 22, they blew up the economy… In a good way. Nowadays, AI writing has become a norm.
I can’t believe it’s almost two years with AI now.
Back in Q4 of 2022, the world was in the grip of inflation. People warned of hyperinflation.
We were heading towards the Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic of 100 years ago.1Source: Wikipedia
Then… AI came to the rescue.
Honestly, AI has single-handedly boosted the economy. Inflation was already peaking at that time, and gradually came down during 2023.
It was really the perfect catalyst for the economy and stock market.
But also for us as individuals.
AI to the rescue
Who can say no to the pitch of AI? It went a bit like this:
“Hi, I’m an AI chatbot. I’m here to help with you all your cognitive tasks. I can do your writing, researching, and even thinking for you!
Need ideas? Got you!
Need to write an annoying email? Got you!”
Look, we’re all suckers for time and money-saving schemes.
And AI is the boss of all bosses when it comes to saving time and money.
So, like millions of other people across the globe, I was enticed.
I started using AI when it came out.
My experience with AI is exactly the same as with flying.
When I went on a plane for the first time and arrived in another country within a few hours, I thought, “WOW, this is amazing.” It was a new experience.
Think of the time you can save traveling by plane.
But as the newness fades, you end up with the practicality of flying:
- I might travel once or twice a year by plane
- I hate airports and lines
- I prefer to take my car even if it means I have to travel for longer because driving is more fun, especially when you go on a vacation
AI can save you time, and that’s about it
Planes and AI. Both save you time. But the amount of times I use both is very limited these days.
AI only gives you the illusion of progress. You think you’re being this clever futurist who’s saving all this time and getting so much stuff done.
That’s not true.
If you consistently use AI for your cognitive tasks, you might feel better now, but you’re getting lazier in the long term.
I know that for a fact. I had a subscription to Jasper AI, which is used for content creation.
After I started experimenting with AI, I thought, “Well, maybe AI can give me my article ideas.”
So that’s what I did for a few months in 2023. And then I noticed something that I absolutely hate.
I became lazy. I started reading less. After all, why read books if AI can give you the summary or ideas?
WRONG, WRONG, wrong.
Another thing: As I created AI-generated articles, my writing assistant/researcher and I spent even more time in the editing process.
- We had to double-check every fact and quote because AI tends to “hallucinate” and make things up.
- We had to edit large sections of an article because it offered no real insight. That’s just the nature of Large Language Models (LLMs) which operate generative AI. They don’t have “insights” of their own. They can only predict the next best string of words based on the data they were trained on. Useful articles that give you results and convince people to act need depth and helpful insights through personal experience and research.
- There’s also the writing itself. Jasper AI is pretty good at copying your writing voice, especially if you train its LLM on your website (like I did). But when you read enough AI-generated stuff, you eventually recognize AI writing immediately. So we had to edit the writing to make it sound more like a real human.
I’m so glad I gave up using AI in my day-to-day. I also canceled my Jasper subscription because I hadn’t used it all year.
These days I use the free version of Chat GPT or Perplexity a few times a week for search. I do like that feature of AI. It’s a good tool for getting quick answers to your questions.
But I’m no longer using AI to outsource my thinking. I talk more about that in this video:
AI can make you dumber while making you feel smart
People need to do more research on this, but I suspect that AI will make the average person dumber over time. In fact, there have been smaller studies that show how AI is impacting people’s creativity.
A 2021 behavioral experiment found that over-reliance on AI can lead to humans becoming dumber by losing their unique knowledge.2Source: Forbes The study said:
“Collective intelligence emerges in humans and society when diverse minds that have access to different data sources come together to find solutions to problems, also known as the wisdom of crowds… Over reliance on AI can lead to a decrease in the diversity of thinking, leading to suboptimal collective performance.”
AI tends to be monotonous because it doesn’t offer anything new (it’s only good at predicting words and re-purposing existing content). In fact, one concern that the study brought up is how over-reliance on AI is similar to being inside an echo chamber.
Social media platforms, for example, use algorithms that detect which content you engage with to show you more of that type of content.
“Those who rely too much on news from social media platforms, which in turn rely too much on AI tools, can slowly become borgs, subject to the echo chambers of AI-enabled news feeds where diversity of thought is gradually lost,” the study continued. “As different groups separate in their collective thinking, they cannot appreciate different perspectives, and at one extreme, they live in alternative realities.”
People begin to mimic AI and rely less on their own thinking, assuming everyone agrees with them and acting as if they’re smart.
In a recent interview, a Portland State University professor observed that there was a gradual decline in the quality of students’ written assessments.3Source: Information Age
After all, when tools do all the work, students don’t learn the important skills they need in life.
“For younger individuals, if they do not exercise the brain by performing complex tasks, important aspects and connections within the brain may not be developed at all,” the professor said.
Progress requires the writing process
There’s this satire film called Idiocracy that I watched many years ago. The film is set in 2505, and everything is so automated that people have become incredibly dumb.
They don’t need to think critically or solve problems. And because people haven’t used their minds, their thinking ability has eroded over time.
This makes me think about the path of AI right now.
We need the process of writing to progress because writing is a form of thinking. It is the writing process that improves you and your life. This applies regardless of your profession.
As the writing professor, William Zinsser puts it:
“People are prevented from doing useful work because they never learned to express themselves. Contrary to general belief, writing isn’t something that only “writers” do; writing is a basic skill for getting through life.”
Back in 2015, before I started blogging, I was stuck and lost in my career. I started journaling to better understand my goals and personal purpose. Then I committed to publishing articles on my blog consistently. This process helped me develop the habit of executing my goals.
Imagine if AI had existed then. I would’ve missed out on all the benefits of writing daily.
The real benefit of writing is in the process. And constantly relying on AI kills our critical thinking skills.
Use your writing and thinking as training for life. Don’t outsource that to AI.
