AI should make me better at my craft, not a better person

Notes from sitting down with myself to ask what I actually want from AI

Observing the current situation I ask myself: what do I actually expect from AI, and why do I even use it? Most of the time I used it to learn, to do things faster, and during that process I happened to learn a lot. But I started wondering what I’m actually trying to achieve. So I sat down with myself to talk.

We’re all so eager to optimize, and that mostly comes from urgency or the desire to improve our business, or some repetitive tasks, things external to ourselves. What happens to us during that process? I know there are studies about this, but this is my personal diary.

We try to improve our quality of life by automating stuff, which seems like a great first step, but again, in that process we move toward external solutions and not internal ones. What happens to ourselves when we automate? Is that improving me, or just how things get done?

Take the calculator. Before calculators it was hard to calculate, but at the same time the ability to focus on one task was much stronger. Calculators came to optimize external events, not internal ones. And sure, calculators are great, they solve a lot of external problems.

Now with the rise of AI it feels like we all want to offload dull tasks so we can do exciting ones, but the caveat is: the more excitement you have, the less capable you become of feeling it. Excitement only exists because there is boredom, because there are things you don’t want to do. It’s always a juxtaposition, two sides of the same thing. Sadness doesn’t exist without happiness. Excitement doesn’t exist without boredom.

So why would I want to use AI? I want it to help me be much better at my craft. I want to be a fucking great designer who can inspire people and motivate them to pursue this career. I want AI to make me better at my craft, not as a person, just my craft. I don’t see any way AI can make me a better person. That can only come from within.

But the question comes up: “If you optimize your daily external tasks, does that give you more room to work on yourself?” Yeah, that’s not how it works. That’s an excuse. You work on yourself when you don’t want to work on yourself. Me sitting down to read a full book is something entirely different from reading a summary, even if I arrive at the same conclusion. We optimize for an easier life, but the only thing that becomes easier are external events, not ourselves.

Events have no meaning until we attach meaning to them. So the paradox happens when we optimize external events in order to improve our quality of life, but in that process only the opposite occurs. We should strive to feel content and at peace in the middle of any event. Which means each event becomes irrelevant, and optimization just pushes us further away from that.

Stay healthy!