AI is making us worse at everything

AI has become pretty hard to avoid as a small business owner. It seems like everywhere I turn online, some new AI feature is being shoved in my face. 

Big tech is pushing AI so hard that I spent an hour on the hook with Google support asking them to remove its AI, Gemini, from Upswept's Google Drive (internal scream). 

If you’re reading this, then I’m betting you’ve already heard a lot of the common criticisms of generative AI: 

• It’s killing the planet with its energy and water use
• It steals from creatives and devalues their work
• It’s feeding culturally harmful (and downright creepy) technologies like AI face and voice synthesis
• It’s a thinly-veiled attempt by C-suite execs to replace people and eliminate their jobs

AI companies are even pushing for their products to become a core part of K-12 education–even though there are already studies showing that AI use can lead to negative impacts on critical thinking.

This is where the AI thicket gets really thorny, people. AI could not only change our culture, our jobs, and our planet for the worse--there's the distinct possibility that it could change who we are for the worse.

Skipping the journey?

Simon Sinek recently pointed out that by letting AI do the work for us, we’re robbing ourselves of experience. We’re only thinking about the end result, and we forget how much we grow during the process of getting TO that end result. 

In short, AI essentially lets us skip the struggle that comes with learning a new skill. We can’t learn from our mistakes, because we aren’t making any.

Have you ever tried to do something creative? Whether it was for work or for fun, you know the struggle: the excitement, the ideas, followed by second-guessing, self-doubt, and finally, the deep digging you do to push your work to that higher level. Folks like me who are creative for a living have accepted that it's part of the process!

And yeah, it’s an emotional meat grinder sometimes, but it’s also where we find our own style, deepen our knowledge, and develop our instincts.

Developing a new skill is hard work – but it matters because it’s hard. Not everyone will put in the time and energy to learn the skills that you pursue, and these become the skills that set you apart.

So, the next time you think about firing up OpenAI, take a beat and ask yourself: am I losing an opportunity to learn?

(And, even if you don’t really want to learn about a particular task, is it worth wasting a bathtub’s worth of water to save 3 minutes?)

Until next time,
--Sarah