So I’ve been experimenting with a new ai journalling tool.
It’s good.
Really good.
It gives reflections on your entries, in the voice of the worlds greatest thinkers like Marcus Aurelius, Steve jobs, or whomever your heros are.
What’s more,
they mentor you, it remembers past entries and reflects on them with you in a chat, like it’s therapy.
Each week you get a deeper reflection with suggestions and prompts and analysis, plus some quotes.
It really is brilliant, the advice it gives is on point, nuanced and personal.
But one thing I’ve noticed is that
Since I started using it,
Instead of me scanning my week,
Thinking about it,
Reflecting,
And making behavioural adjustments,
I’m just taking it’s reflections as my own
I’ve outsourced my thinking to the app,
I don’t think deeply about my entries at all,
I just read the reflections,
I’m learning the insights, without absorbing them through experience.
Even if the results are good,
Is it really wisdom if it’s gained 3rd hand?
I don’t think so, that’s just knowledge not wisdom.
And it speaks to a larger trend of outsourcing our thinking to ai.
As we outsource more and more of our lives to ai we are in danger of getting out of the practice of actually coming to our own conclusions,
of becoming weak-minded, and not able to even think for ourselves.
If we are no more than our thoughts,
But our thoughts are provided by AI,
Then what the hell are we?
