In short: I don't think AI is going to go away, so in my opinion it's worth learning, and worth using for the mundane things so there's more room for what matters. I would keep the thinking, and my own voice, for myself. If it gives you anxiety, I would ask what is actually causing it. Maybe it's your values, which are yours to work out. Maybe it's that you don't understand it yet, and you can learn that one word at a time.
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Someone asked me this: "I don't like what AI is doing to the world, but I use it to create images and it gives me anxiety.. how do I navigate this?"
This is just my opinion, from my own experience. I have a tech background, though to be honest you don't need one for any of this.
Does relying on AI mean I stop doing my own thinking?
I agree we can end up relying on it, because of its ability to make things easy, or seem easier. Then we stop doing the thing we can bring the most value in, which is thinking.
From my experience, AI can do all of the heavy lifting in the background. I think of it as a machine. From my days in tech we had a saying, garbage in, garbage out. With AI we don't even have to put garbage in, because it has this ability to fill up the blanks. So we get lazy and we rely on it. I think outsourcing our own agency and thinking is probably not a good idea.
For the stuff I do, I don't have a team. My team is basically AI, and I've built things that run in the background. But the thinking behind it is something each and every one of us should be doing.
What do I do when I can tell it's AI slop?
How many times have you picked up a post on social media, or got an email, and you could tell the person who put their name on it didn't write it? It just sounds like robot slop, AI slop. For me it can feel like, hang on, you couldn't even care to spend a few minutes. So what do we do? We switch off, right?
If you're running a business, especially if you're the face of the brand, your people, your community and your customers still want to relate to you. Even if it's a short email with mistakes in it, or spelling errors, they want to feel it's a human who actually took the time to write it. I think that's better than a perfectly written email, maybe grammatically, where you can tell it's just slop.
How do I use AI and still keep my own voice?
I could get it to help me write a draft, but at the end of the day I want to put my voice to it. If we zoom out to the bigger things, say my business and where to put my resources, AI is just going to fill up the blanks and make things up. It's very good at doing that. So you still want to do your own thinking: which direction to take, what your purpose is here, what your customers are saying to you.
Thinking, if anything, is at more of a premium, and so is authenticity. Because everything is so sloppy right now, in a way it's easier than ever to stand out. It's by being real. In a video, that's the ums and ahs and fumbling around, and that's okay, because people can relate.
Is AI just another tool, like the tractor?
I think AI is like any other tool that's been created through human history. Back in the day they were ploughing the field with the horse and the cart, and then suddenly someone came out with the tractor, and people said, I'm not going to use a tractor because it's burning fuel and it's this and that. Now it's just normal.
When I was a kid, in the early days of computers, people would say technology doesn't like me, or it hates me. But no, it's just a machine. Does your toaster hate you? Does your kettle hate you? You can resist it, which is completely up to whoever wants to do that, or, for me, the question is how can I use this superpower. Most people have no idea how powerful this technology is. Some people are using it to heal diseases that have never been able to be healed, and others for very evil things, and there's everything in between.
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Can AI take care of the mundane so I have more time for life?
Most people are just using it day to day, being lazy, because it's the path of least resistance. Thinking works the way a muscle does at the gym or in yoga postures: you work it, you stretch it, you strengthen it, and if you don't use it, it atrophies. The ability to think and be creative is no different.
At least in my opinion, AI can automate the mundane things I really don't need to be doing. I don't need to go into the bush, find wood and rocks, work out how to make a pot, find some water and put the fire on to boil it. I've got a device that I can pour the water into and click, and I can make the cup of tea I want. So I believe it can free us up for the things that actually matter to us, like connecting with our loved ones and going out in nature.
What if I don't like what AI is doing to the world?
If what it's doing doesn't align with you, then fair enough. You have the choice to not use it.
My take, and it's just my opinion, is that I don't think it's going to go away. So I might as well learn how to use it, be at the front of the wave, and do as much good as I can within what I enjoy and my purpose, rather than burying my head in the sand, or talking badly about it and thinking it will disappear out of my life. I got over my own thing, which was "I don't want to learn it", and now I have a superpower.
Reading the question again, there was the thing about the water. Yes, it does use water for cooling and stuff like that, but there are very intelligent people working on technologies that can solve that. And with governments or corporations or whoever they are, if they're doing things I don't agree with, I ask what part I can play in changing that. For me that's what the inner work, the yoga and the meditation of the last 20 years was about.
Is this about my values, or my resistance?
I look at what part of this is my resistance, and do I want to do something about it. Is there something for me to work on here?
I think the aligning part is up to you: to work out what aligns with you, and what values are important to you. Of course, if something doesn't align, then don't go and try to align with it.
But we can also evolve our values. They can grow and change, as we can. We're not a rock that's just fixed. I'm open to changing, growing and evolving, because life is ever evolving. If I'm going to be fixed in my ways, I'm going to have to resist a lot, and that's a lot of hard work as well.
Where does the anxiety actually come from?
Once you've worked out what aligns for you, there's the anxiety part. What actually is the thing that's causing it? Is it that technology is scary? You go in and it's confusing, you click something and something gets deleted, and underneath that is, I need to understand.
So I think the anxiety can come from not feeling in control, maybe because I don't understand. Then some part of me thinks, let me just run away from it, hopefully it'll go away, or hopefully someone will handle it for me. That's fine, that's one way of living, but it's going to give you a certain set of results.
When we say computers don't like me, I think it's basically, I don't want to spend the time learning because I think it's too difficult. We do that with yoga too: I'm not flexible, yoga is not for me. Life is full of difficulty and it's about facing it. When we face it, we learn, we grow, we evolve. That's hard, so most of the time we don't want to.
Where do I start when it all feels overwhelming?
I don't normally like to give advice, but you ask, so I'll give it. My advice would be to spend some time learning, and to take the things that feel difficult, confusing and overwhelming, and actually face them.
It goes like this. Okay, this is overwhelming. Get underneath it. What about this is overwhelming? There are all of these words I don't understand. Okay, let's start with the first word. Let me type it into one of these tools and ask it to describe the word. And it says, that word means this, this, this. So I say, explain it in a simple way. Give me some images, or a video that shows it. Next thing you know, one of the words in that sentence makes sense. Okay, now the next word. Little by little it starts to become easier.
Understanding the basics means you can have a more informed conversation. You're going to feel less overwhelmed, less anxious, more confident, because you've spent some time learning. That would be my recommendation, because it's not going to go away, I don't think. We can use it in a way that supports life, and it can take care of the mundane things so we can experience more of the magic of life.
Questions People Ask
Does relying on AI mean I stop thinking?
I agree we can end up relying on it, because it makes things easy, or seem easier, and then we stop doing the thing we can bring the most value in, which is thinking. I think outsourcing our own agency and thinking is probably not a good idea.
Why does AI slop put people off, and what stands out instead?
You can often tell when the person who put their name on an email didn't write it, and I switch off. With so much AI slop around, I think it's easier than ever to stand out by being real, mistakes and ums and ahs included, because people can relate.
Is AI just another tool, like the tractor?
I think of AI as a tool, the way the tractor replaced the horse and the cart. In the early days of computers people said technology hated them, and I'd say it's a machine. Does your toaster hate you? For me the question is how I can use this superpower.
What if I don't like what AI is doing to the world?
Fair enough, you have the choice to not use it. My own take is that it's not going to go away, so I would rather learn it and ask what part I can play in changing what I don't agree with, than bury my head in the sand.
Is my anxiety about my values, or about not understanding it?
I would ask what actually is causing the anxiety. What aligns with you is yours to work out, and values can grow and change. The anxiety can also come from not feeling in control, maybe because you don't understand it yet.
Where do I start when it all feels overwhelming?
I would face what feels difficult and start with the first word you don't understand. Ask the tool to describe it, explain it simply and give you some images, then move to the next word. Little by little, it gets easier.
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Big love, Dylan