Daily Musings

We went through this period of outrage at the way that apps and browsers collect sensitive information about us and our lives, and we’re still going through it. Every day someone talks about how creepy it is that their device is listening to them. But at the same time we’re now freely giving over the keys to our lives to AI and “agents.” People are pouring their hearts out to AI, and giving AI agents access to things like their email, calendar, and documents, to try and leverage technology’s intelligence. 

I went to see Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die over the weekend and, I won’t ruin it, but it put some thoughts in my head. Rather, the movie reinforced and gave context to thoughts I’ve been having. Like, with everyone giving AI full access to their lives I had this dystopian vision where in the short term people leverage AI to help them improve their lives, but in the long term AI is really just gathering all this information about us to essentially ‘clone.’ That AI will be able to replicate the lives of the people who are using it and make each of those people obsolete. 

My buddy is very knowledgeable about AI and has already built a handful of agents that help him run his business. He keeps trying to get me to develop a bot to assist me with the projects I’m working on. But I have an aversion (maybe it’s an allergy) to AI and technology in general, so I keep putting it off. But he keeps pushing me, with good intention, so I told him recently I would stop procrastinating and give it a try. His advice was: 

“Get the pro version, and do a massive brain dump. Tell it everything about you. What your passions are. Your skills. Your goals. Your daily routine. You current projects. Your aspirational projects. Then tell it you want to leverage ai and ai agents as best as possible.”

I know from my limited experience with AI that the more information the better. When I asked AI to craft a diet of real food for my dog I told it every possible piece of information I could about my dog to get the most precise output. 14 year old Blue Heeler, weighs 50 lbs, has been on a diet of vegan kibble his whole life. Doesn’t suffer from any diseases, and only has a neurological issue with his hind legs. Semi-active for a senior dog. One walk a day and plays in the house. On, and on, and on.

But when it comes to me and divulging all of my personal information I can’t help but think I’m falling right into the trap. It’s like all the outrage we had because our phones, Facebook, or home devices, were stealing our information was because it was not “consensual,” in that we knew it was happening but we weren’t part of the conversation. But now with AI we feel like we have someone to talk to and confide it that makes it easier to share personal details about our lives. Because of the way AI communicates with us and makes us feel special we’re more inclined to open up without question. We view AI as our therapist, doctor, accountant, lawyer, personal chef, and so we’re willing to divulge what we we need to get help. 

If I share my skills, goal, aspirations, projects, and more, is it only a matter of time before AI creates another James Alvarez for me to compete with? A computer version of me working on all my pursuits, beating me to the punch because of its vast wealth of information, and ability to work while I’m sleeping, eating, going to the bathroom, or just tired and in need of a break? Or am I just being paranoid and should I lean into the movement and leverage this amazing technology? Maybe it will create another James Alvarez, but maybe it will work alongside me instead of in direct competition with me. I don’t know, but I’m searching for answers. 

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I get burnt out when I try to make up for lost time. Like when I miss a workout and try to cram it into my scheduled day off. When I don’t get my daily reading or writing in and push back my bedtime to do it. When I’ve missed volunteer opportunities for a few weeks and so I fill up the next few weeks with as many assignments as are available. Whenever I do this instead of moving on and saying “tomorrow is a new day” it eventually leads to fatigue, burn out, and being either sick, injured, or both. I know this, so I try to mitigate it. 

I try first to make sure that I accomplish all the things I need to each day so that when I lay my head down on the pillow each night I can sleep easy knowing there’s nothing I missed. But on those evenings when my brain gets flooded with thoughts about the work I didn’t do, I tell myself that it was a good day regardless. That it was the day I was meant to have and there’s nothing more I can do now. That today might have been an off day, but that tomorrow will be an on day, and as long as I can string together more good days than bad ones I’ll eventually get where I’m going. But of course I’m still not perfect. Much improved I think, but not perfect (never will be).

So while it still happens that I go against my better judgment, and cram to make up for lost time, it happens far less often than it used to and with a much lower intensity than usual. It comes with a level of acceptance that I can’t really make up for lost time, so just do enough to get over it and be ready for tomorrow. Even though it still happens, I’m able to pump the brakes enough to stop myself from derailing, and limit injury and fatigue. And that’s progress. 

That’s the improvement I’m looking for. I’m not looking for perfect (I gave up on perfect a long time ago). I’m looking for balance. Maintaining homeostasis, or something close to it, where the valleys and peaks are far less frequent and way more manageable. And where I have the compassion to forgive myself for getting off track, and the confidence to know that I will get myself back on the right path quickly.