Thank you for this article. This is probably one of the biggest reasons why I gravitated to making my decision to stay away from AI for the next two weeks. You inspired me to make that decision now
Hi Omer! I’d be curious to hear about your conclusions after two weeks living AI-free. Funny how most of us lived just fine without AI two years ago, now suddenly we have enormous shift towards AI driven world and automating everything that comes to our minds on one hand and on the other strong desire to come back to analog life.
The funny thing is, I was taking this break based upon a series of prompt exchanges with Claude. I was zeroed in and advised explicitly to read up before re-engaging and working on the project I am currently busy with. I am not sure if it is social isolation or the fact that I do not have anyone who I can talk to about my self-driven project(s) because everybody has a life of their own and I am looking for other people like me in the digital space. Meanwhile, just having the flexibility and availability of a sounding board is such a huge pacifier for me…and I guess I need it in the form of AI to coax and calm me about my internal dialogues which I don’t want to offload to people in my offline life because they won’t get it entirely and I don’t want to offload unnecessarily to be a burden. And Disclaimer: I slipped… 1 day clean time gone down the drain… But!… Progress over Perfection…. Keep on Keeping On! :P
Unlike some people on Substack, I don’t live out of writing and have a normal 9-5 therefore I couldn’t get myself earlier to reply to you. Hope you understand!
That’s an interesting turn of events to be honest - I believe it depends on the “personality” and tone you set up for your AI agent. I keep my AI agents on the short leash and it works well for my style of work. I do agree however that we all live in kind of silos now - everyone is looking after themselves only. My personal projects as well seem unlike what others around me are doing, but everyone has its own path and I stick to mine - that’s how I see it. Don’t be discouraged it didn’t last long but at least you are trying. Awareness of negative impact of AI usage on our cognitive skills is already a huge step forward.
Short leash for me is a critical way of using AI - questioning everything it says to me, often refusing suggestions, I decide myself when to pause or re-direct. I complain a lot about the quality of output but I know at certain point cannot do better than that. I don’t seek validation of my ideas and sometimes I follow my gut feeling instead of machine advice. I find this healthy in terms of usage, but it’s worth to add that it’s part of my personality in real life as well to expect a lot from myself and others.
THIS!!
Thank you for this article. This is probably one of the biggest reasons why I gravitated to making my decision to stay away from AI for the next two weeks. You inspired me to make that decision now
Hi Omer! I’d be curious to hear about your conclusions after two weeks living AI-free. Funny how most of us lived just fine without AI two years ago, now suddenly we have enormous shift towards AI driven world and automating everything that comes to our minds on one hand and on the other strong desire to come back to analog life.
The funny thing is, I was taking this break based upon a series of prompt exchanges with Claude. I was zeroed in and advised explicitly to read up before re-engaging and working on the project I am currently busy with. I am not sure if it is social isolation or the fact that I do not have anyone who I can talk to about my self-driven project(s) because everybody has a life of their own and I am looking for other people like me in the digital space. Meanwhile, just having the flexibility and availability of a sounding board is such a huge pacifier for me…and I guess I need it in the form of AI to coax and calm me about my internal dialogues which I don’t want to offload to people in my offline life because they won’t get it entirely and I don’t want to offload unnecessarily to be a burden. And Disclaimer: I slipped… 1 day clean time gone down the drain… But!… Progress over Perfection…. Keep on Keeping On! :P
Unlike some people on Substack, I don’t live out of writing and have a normal 9-5 therefore I couldn’t get myself earlier to reply to you. Hope you understand!
Completely understandable, I have a typical 9-5 myself.
That’s an interesting turn of events to be honest - I believe it depends on the “personality” and tone you set up for your AI agent. I keep my AI agents on the short leash and it works well for my style of work. I do agree however that we all live in kind of silos now - everyone is looking after themselves only. My personal projects as well seem unlike what others around me are doing, but everyone has its own path and I stick to mine - that’s how I see it. Don’t be discouraged it didn’t last long but at least you are trying. Awareness of negative impact of AI usage on our cognitive skills is already a huge step forward.
I have decided to follow with the short leash path myself. I would love to know more about what you exactly mean by short leash though.
Short leash for me is a critical way of using AI - questioning everything it says to me, often refusing suggestions, I decide myself when to pause or re-direct. I complain a lot about the quality of output but I know at certain point cannot do better than that. I don’t seek validation of my ideas and sometimes I follow my gut feeling instead of machine advice. I find this healthy in terms of usage, but it’s worth to add that it’s part of my personality in real life as well to expect a lot from myself and others.