Adults Have Totally Misunderstood How AI Will Affect Society
Time to look at the other side of AI (this will affect us all)
AI has created a mass panic.
People are pooping their pants. They’re told AI is coming for their jobs. The threat is presented in a self-help kind of way that loudly says “get off ya ass ya lazy piece of crap or AI is gonna replace you.”
It’s annoying. And it’s inescapable.
At work we’re bombarded with “learn AI.” The products we use keep slapping us in the face with “another AI feature you dumb-dumb.” If you dare open any social media app, you’ll see AI fear p*rn everywhere.
Then there’s the get-rich-quick gurus. They’re gonna give you life-changing AI insights you can’t google that will sell your $5 book for $100.
AI is misunderstood.
Let me give you the watered-down version with some optimism that’ll make your day and put a smile on your face (because you damn well deserve it).
The first industry AI screwed in the butt
That industry is mine: writing.
When ChatGPT onboarded more users in 90 days than any other piece of tech in history, suddenly, the world started to pay attention to AI. That fire has burned bigger each year since.
During the madness I woke up to the potential that my writing wouldn’t matter anymore. “AI will write for you,” I read. And AI did try to write for me. But it sounded like a stupid robot who put me to sleep the way Wikipedia does.
I have and continue to use AI for research or basic editing. But to say AI has replaced writers is factually wrong. AI has made writers more in demand. How? Because the masses have misunderstood AI and its use.
So they’re using AI to write with. That’s why they all sound boring and the same. But because words appeared on a page they don’t see the issue with AI. Now, I’m not stupid. AI will write better and better each year.
But what AI can’t replace is human writers. Humans have stories to tell and they’re stuck in our brains. Humans build stuff too. We have lived experiences every day and we can synthesize human events like no other.
I see it on social media all the time. I’ll get direct messages from people saying, “Yo, Timmy Bro, can you send me some viral templates?” Or “So, how do I get AI to write all my social media posts for me?”
These are legitimate questions I get. And it’s my greatest advantage.
What everyone’s missing is this:
Writing is thinking.
If AI does the thinking for you, then, well, you’re not thinking.
If you don’t think for long enough you become stupid. You become no better than a porcelain doll used in a clothing shop to highlight the size of a man’s pen!s if he buys these gorgeous Nike Pro gym shorts.
As Naval says, “AI is a tool - it replaces repetitive work, not creative work.”
It gets worse…
AI is a model. It needs data to run.
AI apps like ChatGPT got its inputs from stealing copyrighted content off writers and creators all over the internet. This is why the meaning of copyright in the world of AI to some people is now laughable. The damage is done.
Some writers in my circle are pissed by this. But that’s because they think typing words on a keyboard makes them special, and that the world wants more information to drown in (not quite, sister).
Because AI will likely always find a way to use and abuse copyrighted words, the business models have changed. The days of just selling information as the main gig are likely gone.
That’s a huge opportunity and will create a more positive future.
The hidden danger of outsourcing your thinking to AI
AI is great. I love it.
But if you don’t understand the nuance of how AI should be used, it’ll make your life worse. Let me give you an example. There’s a new phenomenon. It’s called ChatGPT Brain (also known as Claude Brain).
Tech expert Greg Isenberg explains:
Just had a fascinating lunch with a 22-year-old Stanford grad. Smart kid. Perfect resume. Something felt off though.
He kept pausing mid-sentence, searching for words. Not complex words - basic ones. Like his brain was buffering.
Finally asked if he was okay. His response floored me.
"Sometimes I forget words now. I'm so used to having ChatGPT complete my thoughts that when it's not there, my brain feels... slower."
He'd been using AI for everything. Writing, thinking, communication. It had become his external brain. And now his internal one was getting weaker.
Made me think about calculators. Remember how teachers said we needed to learn math because "you won't always have a calculator"? They were wrong about that.
But maybe they were right about something deeper.
We're running the first large-scale experiment on human cognition. What happens when an entire generation outsources their thinking?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m beyond excited about what AI and AI agents will do for people in the same way that I was excited in 2009 when the App Store was launched.
But thinking out loud you got to think this guy I met with isn't the o-n-n-n-n-n-ly one that's going to be completely dependent on AI.
If you overuse AI tools, you become stupider. You stop thinking. A computer starts to program your brain. Which means a computer starts to tell you how to think.
Holly sh*t, it’s as if the Matrix movie is now alive. It wasn’t a fictional story after all! See the danger?
AI is a tool but if you use it in the wrong way or think it should run your entire life, well, you’re f*cked. AI will tell you the president is evil and you’ll try to assassinate him, then blame the robots for telling you to do it. I’m joking but you get the point.
Humans need to do their own thinking.
The doomers feared the internet too
Let’s get to some optimistic hopeium.
Whenever I read another essay or thread about how AI is going to replace humans and kill all our jobs, I have nostalgia. I’m 38 but I feel like a grandpa in technology terms. I got the internet at home in 1996. By midnight I was downloading illegal music and watching Pamela Anderson t*tty videos that should have been banned.
I remember the same headlines as today. “The internet will replace humans. Jobs are gone. How will humans survive? The rich will get richer. You, mam, will get poorer.”
I was young and dumb and got fooled. In 2005 I turned 19. I ran a business with my brother. I thought my career was over. It felt like Google had taken over everything. If you didn’t have a website by then, you were irrelevant and too late.
As the years progressed we got comfortable with the internet. Wifi was everywhere and soon we had it on our phones. Then social media came along with phone apps.
The world didn’t end.
The internet didn’t take our jobs… but it did change how we did our jobs for the better.
My dad used to have to keep filing cabinets full of paper receipts. In my last banking job, I didn’t have a single piece of paper on my desk for 10 years. This meant I could spend time with customers, not looking for a piece of paper with banking secrets on it that I’d left in the bathroom while taking a dump.
AI is similar to the internet revolution. It will add another layer of tech on top of the internet that will drastically change life as we know it. But it won’t replace humans. It’ll make humans better and more productive.
Anyone who thinks AI is bad is naive. Humans hate change which is why we’re terrified of progress. But the progress itself is rarely bad.
“When we worry about AI making us obsolete, we assume a fundamental error.
That error is in mistaking creativity for the ability to recall factual information. Because if that were the case, then sure, AI has surpassed anything we could ever do in that domain.”
– Lawrence Yeo
“Artificial intelligence is a test to determine who has agency and who doesn't.”
(Anthony Pompliano)
AI replaces dumb work, donkey work. This is a good outcome. This made me realize something: people worship entrepreneurs like their gods.
I don’t subscribe to this philosophy but AI has finally made me understand it. The average person works a job. To get it they had to go to college and get a degree that effectively gave them the “12 step guide to being a lawyer” or whatever they became.
They then assume this “here are the steps” philosophy applies to the real world. But it doesn’t. The days of certainty and predictability are gone.
There is no proven formula to succeed in any industry.When these same people show up for their jobs each day, they need to be told what to do. They need orders. They need someone to give them a career plan or they’ll rage-quit. They’re completely dependent on others. They lack agency (resourcefulness).
What’s difference about entrepreneurship – and why it’s secretly worshipped by most people – is that to build a business you must be high agency (resourceful).
When you build a business:
There are no rules.
There are no proven formulas.
You must create something from nothing.
You must find a way to be better, or the incumbents will outcompete you.
Entrepreneurship is just a high agency life in disguise.
This matters more than ever because in a world of AI, if you’re not high agency, then the low agency admin tasks of society can be done by AI.
AI loves being told what to do and will follow orders 10x better than any human. And AI doesn’t need a rest, piss break, weekend, holiday, or pizza and beers. It doesn’t even need to feel valued because it has no emotions.
What this means for you is the #1 skill you must acquire and be relentless on improving is your agency. Without agency you are easily replaceable.
The good news is any of us can magically become high agency.
We just need motivation. And necessity is the mother of discipline & focus. When we must do something we find a way.
When I had dark mental illness and didn’t want to live anymore, I had no choice. I had to change. When a bad boss fired me in 2019 and made me look like a d*ck in front of millions of people on LinkedIn for his own erotic pleasure, I had no choice.
I had to find another job or starve and not pay rent anymore.
There was no middle ground. So guess what? I became f*cking resourceful overnight. I rang every contact in my phone. I had a coffee with everyone I could. I even spoke to homeless people.
I ended up finding a job opportunity in the most unlikely place. But when I was given the job opportunity, it was nearly taken away again because there was a hiring freeze. I had to follow up every day for 3 months while trying not to look desperate.
But I found a way. I got hired. Then I started the job working in IT and had no clue what to do. I had to sell cloud solutions to strangers and I knew nothing about it. But I found a way after hours to learn about the cloud. I asked fellow co-workers. I did everything I could to master it.
Eventually I closed one of the largest IT deals at that company.
When we must find a way we will. AI is giving us all that opportunity right now, and it’s the best kick up the butt society could ask for. It’s an instant productivity boost that’ll reveal our hidden potential and give us newfound motivation.
AI is a productivity boom in disguise. Faster, cheaper, better. Good.
Expertise has been replaced by synthesis
Experts memorize information.
They think they’re real smart. They care about IQ scores more than their children. Author Mark Manson changed the game with this idea:
In the age of information overload, expertise is not knowing lots and lots of stuff—rather, it’s the ability to sort the useful from the useless.
AI has all the information. We’re drowning in it. But the skill I’ve been tapping into is synthesizing all that information for people (like what I’m doing here).
AI sucks at that.
Whereas humans are great at joining the dots and highlighting the useful parts hidden in between all the information. This is what writers do. It used to just be my job. But now writing is all of our jobs. Why?
Now that everything is becoming language models and prompts because of AI, writers are more valuable than ever. – Unknown
Stop worshipping the memorization of information like a sheep. Upgrade your ability to synthesize the information – and use social media to share the output.
A digital renaissance is coming. It’s the greatest time in history to be alive.
Stop listening to doomers.
They haven’t taken their meds, dealt with their depression, or touched grass in the last week. AI is creating a digital renaissance similar to the one that made greats like Michelangelo famous for eternity.
Arthur Hayes has a great summary of this digital renaissance:
Artificial intelligence and robotics will be used primarily to eliminate the tedious, bullsh*t work in which most of humanity currently toils, so that more and more people can pursue their passions in a similar fashion.
Ideally, this will lead to our next great renaissance of art and culture, as millions (or even billions) of humans are suddenly free to do what they love and create happiness through art.
AI will help us make great art again.
Instead of looking at screens all day, we can have a conversation with an AI agent, get them to start our day’s work, and focus on the real human work of being resourceful, building things, using our creativity & imagination, and leveraging human relationships to further our cause.
Mature adults see AI as a tool. Use it and learn it the same way we all did when we got on the internet for the first time or picked up an iPhone.
Am I missing anything?
Add it in the comments.
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I used ChatGPT a couple of years ago to help me write code in Python for web scraping. Alone I would've needed a month. With ChatGPT I completed the task in a few days.
I used to be scared that AI would take my job as a researcher. I am still scared. But not because it will take my job anymore. I'm now scared that our future generations won't know how to think. That point about the interviewees brain buffering is frightening.