Why you shouldn't fear AI

“Just had a fascinating lunch with a 22-year-old.

Stanford grad. Smart kid. Perfect resume. Something felt off though.

He kept pausing mid-sentence, searching for words.

Not complex words - basic ones.

Like his brain was buffering.

Finally asked if he was okay. His response floored me.

"Sometimes I forget words now. I'm so used to having chatGPT complete my thoughts that when it's not there, my brain feels... slower."

He'd been using AI for everything.

Writing, thinking, communication. It had become his external brain. And now his internal one was getting weaker.

Made me think about calculators.

Remember how teachers said we needed to learn math because "you won't always have a calculator"?

They were wrong about that.

But maybe they were right about something deeper.

We're running the first large-scale experiment on human cognition.

What happens when an entire generation outsources their thinking?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m beyond excited about what AI and AI agents will do for people in the same way that I was excited in 2009 when the App Store was launched.

But thinking out loud you got to think this guy I met with isn't the o-n-n-n-n-n-ly one that's going to be completely dependent on AI.”

Ai is misunderstood

I’ll be honest

I was worried too

Because the first name that comes to your mind on the list of industries screwed by Ai is writing

It’s absurd to think Ai will replace writing but the constant bombardment of endless threats on social media would make anyone poop their pants.

It was annoying.

So i threw myself in the rabbit hole of artificial intelligence and found a few answers that’ll make your day and put a smile on your wrinkled face

Writing is thinking

If AI does the thinking for you, then, well, you’re not thinking.

If you don’t think for long enough you become stupid.

A computer starts to program your brain.

Which means a computer starts to tell you how to think.

Which means you box yourself in a single way of thinking

Which means you lose your creativity

The thing that lets you connect dots across different verticals and gives you a unique edge over artificial intelligence

Which means you should fear artificial intelligence

As Naval says,

“AI is a tool - it replaces repetitive work, not creative work.”

Whenever I come across another tweet about how AI is going to replace humans, it reminds me of how people once said the internet would kill real world businesses, or that automation would take over factories (without any trace of a human), or that ebooks would destroy bookstores, or that Grammarly would make editors irrelevant, or that Excel would wipe out accountants, or that online shopping would wipe out malls

None of that happened

Okay, maybe it did

So, what’s the difference between the people who survived and the ones who didn’t

Agency

Artificial intelligence, just like every other threat sent to erase mankind is heaven for the high agency people and hell for the low agency ones

If you observe your surroundings, you'll notice that the difference between high agency and low agency people comes down to certain traits.

But, luckily, any trait can be developed through investing time, energy, and effort.

Which means being a low agency person is a choice - not a consequence of circumstances or limitations

To become high agency, you simply need a reason to become high agency

You need a reason to trade a comfortable life for a challenging one

You need a reason to trade instant gratification for delayed gratification

You need a reason to struggle, to think, to sacrifice, to endure

If you don’t have a reason, well… reflect on your current conditions and give birth to one

It is the only way you will be able to adapt to a rapidly changing world or you’ll become bitter and miserable and end up hating everything around you

Because, deep down, you hate yourself