No, I will not turn my brain off

On keeping up my brain capacity and refusing convenience via AI.

Courtesy of Cosmos

I get it, it’s cute and trendy to ask ChatGPT everything. But let me come to the confessions table. I have never used ChatGPT before, and do my best to not use AI This isn’t to be holier than thou or that cool girl. It’s because I want to keep my brain awake.

Let’s dive into it.

The question of convenience

‘Just use AI to fix it for you’ this is what a friend said to me when I said how much of a struggle it was to organise my itinerary for my upcoming trip. I pondered it (yes I ponder things now).

I can understand why you would want AI to do certain things for you, like doing your laundry, loading your dishwasher, changing your sheets or cleaning between the couch and the wall. But even that seems too convenient, especially when you’re young, physically able and have time. I see my parents in their 70’s and 80’s still doing gardening, housework and how healthy it keeps them. It motivates me to do it myself.

The question is: what is the price of convenience, how much does it take away from us in 20-30 years if not right now? I know we don’t always think of the future (yes the world may end tomorrow) but it’s worth considering.

The satisfaction of a job well done

One of the best feelings on earth is when you do the thing and you have the satisfaction of it. When your sheets are crisp, your hair is freshly washed, and everything is squeaky clean and warm. When you plan a weekend away with friends and it goes well. When you start a project, finish it and the world sees it.

If I use AI to make me an itinerary not only would I then have to make sure it fits the budget and my preferences, I’d also have no satisfaction, and if the AI made errors? Well that error would cost a lot of money. I’d rather make a mistake myself and have the satisfaction of learning from it.

The disappearing brain

I don’t want to talk about how long it took me to get my attention span back. It took about two years post Covid, and deleting social media from my phone. I can finally sit on a train and read my book, I can drive in silence with my thoughts, I can sit and research a topic of interest from scratch not using Google’s AI feature) to make my own conclusions.

Then there is my sense of direction, destroyed thanks to overusing my GPS. Once upon a time I could read a physical map with a compass, I could remember a route after being there once or twice…it took a year of putting the gps away to finally start getting my sense of direction back. Sure, you get lost- but you leave early and it’s okay. It also makes for a great story.

What I’m trying to say is that the brain trains itself based on our habits. So if we teach it to switch off, it doesn’t fix itself unless we change our habits. And life is already hard enough without having to train our brain. That being said, I worked hard to be somewhat intelligent, taking it away for ease seems counterintuitive.

The need for old fashioned things

I know it’s old school. Like keeping paper journals to look back at years later. Like considering printing your Substack posts and putting into a little book (some of you are so talented you should do this, you’re worth reading in paperback..nay hardcover!).

Yes I am behind the curve, yes I am not on the frontline of innovation. But currently it has no impact on me. AI is unlikely to take my job (apologies to Hollywood, but entertainment must be done by humans for humans otherwise it’s inauthentic). Sure, AI is likely to take over the world, but at least it won’t see me as a threat, it’ll probably send me to AI therapy…especially if it reads my Substack posts.

What do you think? Are you an AI person? Are you not?