I'm not totally sure how to feel about AI

AI is amazing. Nothing short of magical. I can’t tell you how cool it is, as someone with a software development background, to all of a sudden be able to build (and throw away if I want!) all those random ideas for tools and apps that come to my mind. And not because I have more free time (I don't). And not because I’ve gained some new skill (I haven’t, mostly). But because we have AI now. I don’t know if it applies to every industry or skill - but for software development AI is like an extreme, unthinkable multiplier on existing expertise. The limit is no longer how quickly something can be coded - it’s how quickly I can describe or provide feedback on the thing I want built.

And it’s equally amazing for “just life stuff.” Confused about how to get your bike rack on? Wondering what model the oh-so-amazing showerhead in your hotel room is? Snap a photo, feed it to your AI bot of choice, and instantly get the answer you need. Need ideas for running workouts based on your current fitness level? Connect the Strava MCP to Claude and have it review your current training status and provide some options.

It’s not that most of this was impossible before. It’s that it is now so fast, and so easy.

But AI is also terrible. The race to the mediocre mean of everyone getting the same AI-recommended car for their income bracket and taking the same AI-recommended vacation. Wondering if that thing you saw your friend post was actually written by them or just a random idea handed off to ChatGPT. And then wondering if it matters - is helping AI craft something just as valuable as putting pen to paper yourself?

I truly worry about where all this leads. When we’re all talking to the same robots trying to generally accomplish the same stuff - what does that do to life both professionally and personally? Is the new performance review about how well you interact with AI agents and what inefficiencies you were able to eliminate - even if one of those was yourself? Will we be able to make personal decisions without consulting the AI overlords that have the vast amount of knowledge to provide critical opinions?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that around the same time I started getting more deeply involved with AI is the same time at which I also started reading physical books again. It’s a reflection of the love/hate relationship I have with AI. It’s no good to be all-in, all the time, on anything. And AI is no exception.