What We Are When We Use AI
Sometimes when we're using AI, we're showing our base tendencies.
When we use AI
When we use AI, in some sense it means that we're done creating.
We're remixing and reusing.
We're ok with average.
We're getting it done.
We're not concerned about quality.
We're focused on quantity.
We're making money, not art.
We're focused on outcome, not the journey.
We're impatient to have results now.
We want a direct course, like turn-by-turn GPS.
We're too busy for adventure and side roads.
We've already shown it
Creating is hard. Of course we are all of those things listed above. We're not always at our best.
We've already shown it. AI is not the first time that we've see it. Here are 3 more common and established ways that we know this about ourselves:
- What about pre-written code? There's heaps of it. "There's a library for that." "There's an app for that." Just npm install it.
- There is immense data waiting to be queried. Google it. Scan... hop, hop. Quick!
- What about books about books? Someone else has experienced it. "What's the tldr?" Get the Cliff Notes.
AI is a bit more acute
AI is also a bit different this time. We feed our same natural tendencies, but the outcomes for ourselves, and maybe our products, are worse with AI.
- With AI, we don't choose the library. It's chosen for us. It's not the best. It's just the most common. Or it's the one that the LLM developer prefers and guides us to use.
- With AI, we don't survey a list of data sources and choose. We are fed the top hit, pre-selected for us and explained confidently.
- With AI, we don't get a human-to-human recommendation. We get a statistical likelihood fed to us by a machine.
This is me
I've done all these things: install libraries, googled for answers and relied on others' experiences. And sometimes to great effect. I could ship faster, get more money and not have to labor so intensely. And I was grateful. I was happy to go on with my life and do something else.
But I don't want this to be my status quo, the default. I don't want to get better at AI in order to get done quickly, produce something average and get paid.
Experience -- joyful experience -- is the reason for living. Sometimes I will be lazy and in a hurry, sure, but I don't want the norm to become me feeding my tendencies and then getting fed by a computer.
Human agents are, in the end, the only ones I really care about.
Overcoming AI me
What if I never have the experience? What if I never say, "Wait, don't tell me; I'll figure it out"?
If I never write the library instead of installing it, will I ever understand it, be able to independently reproduce it or be able to improve on it?
If I get the knowledge faster, how long will I remember it? How well can I apply it elsewhere?
If I read the review of the book but never the book, will I ever be inspired by the language, day dream and ponder it or come to my own conclusions?
I stay status quo. Or get stupider. Or less creative. But maybe better at AI.
A life of experience
Many people die with their music still in them. Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it time runs out.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Life is short. Living is doing and becoming. It matters what we do and who we become. Will there be any joy in being an LLM kitty?
I don't want to start out thinking I'm prompting an AI only to find out that I'm letting the AI tell me what to do.
I don't want to get my best ideas from an AI. I don't even want to give my best ideas to an AI.
I want to enjoy a journey, make some gourment dinners, write some bespoke code, put art on the wall that no one else could, create some one-of-a-kind products.
I want some knowledge to accrete slowly, so that I can digest it and really feel it inside me. I can write my own library, search my own books and invent new solutions.
A full life is one of experience and joy. I don't want to die my music still in me.