I find that using AI whittles away the meaningless tasks for me and reveals more of what I value. For example, I read your entire post and now it's reminded me to think about thinking. Also, I know a bit more about what I'm rebelling against besides a nebulous idea of "bullshit jobs."
I think that’s aspirational and directionally correct (indeed I wrote about the four quadrants of AI-enabled work here: https://www.whitenoise.email/p/beat-the-bot-the-four-quadrants-of), however I find that technological adoption almost always follows the same, depressing arc: first we embrace it, then we abuse it, then it abuses us.
The dose makes the poison and it’s a very slippery slope sans superhuman willpower.
I hate these four words, but they’re appropriate here: this time is different.
To mix metaphors, people working with abacuses can’t compete with people using calculators. The danger is when the easy way out becomes the only way through. I think the answer is Aristotle’s Golden Mean. Spellcheck is fine; prompting in place of thinking isn’t. The former is an assist; the latter is an abdication.
Thinking is hard, and we’re evolutionarily tuned to conserve energy—so we’ll default to the path of least resistance unless we deliberately resist it.
I find that using AI whittles away the meaningless tasks for me and reveals more of what I value. For example, I read your entire post and now it's reminded me to think about thinking. Also, I know a bit more about what I'm rebelling against besides a nebulous idea of "bullshit jobs."
I think that’s aspirational and directionally correct (indeed I wrote about the four quadrants of AI-enabled work here: https://www.whitenoise.email/p/beat-the-bot-the-four-quadrants-of), however I find that technological adoption almost always follows the same, depressing arc: first we embrace it, then we abuse it, then it abuses us.
The dose makes the poison and it’s a very slippery slope sans superhuman willpower.
I generally agree, but where do you draw the line between this and similar criticisms of technology going back to Plato and writing?
I hate these four words, but they’re appropriate here: this time is different.
To mix metaphors, people working with abacuses can’t compete with people using calculators. The danger is when the easy way out becomes the only way through. I think the answer is Aristotle’s Golden Mean. Spellcheck is fine; prompting in place of thinking isn’t. The former is an assist; the latter is an abdication.
Thinking is hard, and we’re evolutionarily tuned to conserve energy—so we’ll default to the path of least resistance unless we deliberately resist it.