AI Makes Us Feel Unproductive
Artificial intelligence has made us all more conscious of our shortcomings. There is a constant nagging feeling at the back of our heads that we aren’t doing enough. No matter what I do, I always feel guilty that I should be more productive. I should be creating more. That I might be left behind.
This is a stupid feeling, I know, and yet it also feels strangely logical. I am aware of its capabilities and the beautiful things we can build with it, but I feel as though I am not doing enough. These tools have unleashed a new wave of productivity in us, but we don’t seem to have enough avenues through which to channel that productivity.
For instance, imagine we want to have a healthy breakfast every day. Any sensible person would simply pick up a pan and break a few eggs for a perfect omelette. It provides satiety and nutrition while saving effort and time. But then one day we get a robot that can literally cook anything we demand of it. All it needs from us are ideas.
So fine, I tell that robot to cook me eggs. And it does, beautifully. Almost perfectly. Better than I ever prepared them. But now I begin to feel that using the robot merely to prepare eggs is not enough. Naturally, I check what other people are doing with this robot and learn that they are making it prepare elaborate recipes, and it does so magnificently.
And suddenly I feel miserable that I have the most advanced robot in my house and yet I am not leveraging it enough. So I start exploring what else I could do with it and begin tinkering with its abilities. In the entire process, I miss the point that all I really needed was an omelette.
The purpose of the analogy is not to suggest that we don’t need anything. We certainly do. My point is that because we have the most advanced silicon at our disposal, we feel compelled to extract the maximum from it regardless of what we actually need. Even the ideas aren’t entirely ours. Most of them are borrowed.
Artificial intelligence has certainly made my life far better. I cannot imagine living without it now. I cannot even think back five years and understand how I managed to do all those things without it. I regret missing out on its potential during my twenties.
But here’s the kicker. I have already built what I wanted to build. I have run some of the most sophisticated statistical models using these tools. All of my curiosities, and I am insatiable in that department, now have a home. I am reading more than ever before, and I am reading more deeply than ever before.
And yet this nagging feeling of not doing enough never leaves. Technology had already placed us on a treadmill. We were progressing faster than before, but it still felt like a rat race. Artificial intelligence has simply increased the speed of that treadmill. Sure, we are running even faster, but we are also approaching burnout far more quickly.
Progress will likely come sooner than before, but it is arriving at a cost. I regret the limits of the use cases I am able to imagine. This particular piece of technology has filled us with an incessant urge to rush in a race. Toward where, I don’t know. And I suspect none of us truly know.
There is a constant anxiety about being left behind, and everyone feels as though they are already behind in the race. We have no idea who is ahead or what lies ahead. Can we even see the horizon? The anxiety is brutal because it makes you feel as though you have the most powerful silicon in the world at your disposal and yet you are not building anything that can truly propel your life forward.
At this point, I don’t have a definitive solution. I am focusing on different areas of my life, particularly the things I always wanted to pursue but couldn’t. I am using these tools to build systems and knowledge bases so that I can do more with my life. Doing more does bring satisfaction, but it comes without even an iota of direction.
If you are someone going through the same phase in life, one simple hack is to focus on areas you have always wanted to improve, places where you felt you were lacking. Instead of exhausting yourself trying to invent creative ideas or money-making schemes, simply use these tools to improve your life.
Once we have covered the basics of our lives with the help of technology, we will finally have enough space and bandwidth to think about what else we can build or pursue. Ultimately, the goal of every piece of technology is to help us live a better life. And that, perhaps, is the lowest hanging fruit of all.