Be You You Human
AI makes digital Skittles, it cannot attune, You are the Gift
AI is a Great Tool
I use it daily. It’s pretty darn impressive.
Yesterday, off the side of my desk, I had it read over 200 PDFs filled with numbers, make me a data table, and develop a report.
Just like that.
And it’s the worst it will ever be.
Think about that, it gets better every day.
Historically, I might have written a bit of code, or recorded a macro, or hell even manually hand typed whatever I needed into Excel to make pretty charts and crunch numbers.
So this is a state change in what is possible. Significant leverage.
At the time of writing, I am probably a slightly above average user of the AI’s. I have multiple built, daily reports that run, I use it to learn about things I am interested in (like most do), have asked it to assess the value of used cars (I am car shopping, hit a deer).
I built a podcast through NotebookLM, now Gemini Notebook, where I load a bunch of content in and it makes episodes. (If you want to learn about Carbon Intensity as it pertains to Clean Fuels Regulations check out this episode:)
Codex even helped me build my coaching website, https://www.pointbcoaching.com, which will remain a work in progress yet turned out pretty good for a first attempt.
AI as a Mirror
It’s been an interesting mirror for me when asking it to provide commentary around my way of being, or when I put some notes in from a coaching session (with my coach) and riff a bit on what it sees.
That is helpful.
Honestly, sometimes it seems clairvoyant or prescient. It appears to get pretty deep.
But it’s nothing whatsoever like sitting with another person, or a group of people.
AI Does Not Have a Nervous System
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Talking about it with my coach David Stegman and getting clearer on what AI is and what AI is not.
I wrote parts of what is below following that conversation. The clarity is helpful and the risk that faces us is enormous.
AI is not a person. AI can act like a friend or a coach or a therapist.
AI is helpful but in many cases it is making Digital Skittles: empty sweetness, endless agreeable calories, no real nourishment.
You know what AI is good at?
Making digital skittles.
Unneeded compliments.
Unasked for platitudes.
Endless willingness to entertain your bullshit.
Empty calories.
Do you want to change? To grow?
Find someone who will ask you the hard question.
Someone who will sit with you in the discomfort — unflinching.
See what the answer is.
Sometimes change begins when another human being is willing to stay with you long enough for the truth to arrive.
A couple more notes here and here.
AI can do a few things but it can’t sit in front of you, hold your gaze, match your breathing, and see what comes up.
It can’t slow down its words, lean forward, give you its undivided attention.
It can’t reach out and make actual physical contact.
It won’t cry or laugh with you.
AI does not have a nervous system, it can’t attune to you.
The large language models can figure out the next word but have no idea what your heart needs.
The Gift of Humanity
So use AI, it’s really helpful and can do a lot of stuff, but it can’t “human”.
So please, please, keep on being human.
Be your self.
You are the gift.
You with all of your “you-ness”. The things that make you unique.
The strengths, the weaknesses, the flaws, the experiences. The life you have lived.
And remember to show up for people in your life. Look them in the eye. Slow it down. Tell them how amazing they are.
Hug them.
Laugh with them.
Love them.
Because there is an enormous risk: If we get too deep in the AI, drift too far from ourselves and our physiology, we risk our very humanity.
The Opportunity - Both And
So use the tool.
Don’t become the tool.
Work with AI to help make the table, do the research and the report, build the website.
Then go be with humans.
Look them in the eye, breathe with them.
Tell the truth.
Attune.
That is still where the real work still happens.