I'm not against technology and I like the acceleration generative AI can give to many activities but as any technology advancement that alleviate the human effort also GenAi will require careful usage and a healthy dose of wisdom. We must always remember that today's problems come from yesterday's solutions.
As cars and engines lifted us from the effort of walking and running, and indeed helped increasing human productivity by several order of magnitude, they had also the undesired effect that obesity has become a serious issue and people have to go to the gym to keep themselves fit, they also generated so much pollution that now appears evident we are having an impact planet's climate.
GenAi promise is to lift us from the effort of "Thinking"; but isn't "Thinking" the very skill that defines us as humans?
Should this vision fully realize it would require people willing to do so to go to the gym for their brains, and most likely we would see a vast majority of people too intent in doing something else to the point they will self-harm themselves not keeping their brain fit, actively self-dehumanizing.
This is already happening if you look at the statistics of how many people read books on a routinely base (https://news.gallup.com/poll/388541/americans-reading-fewer-books-past.aspxperform).
Shouldn't we be scared of a technology promising to accelerate this trend? What is the paradox here? Can we use Goldratt cloud to untie this knot?
The Goal
I believe the goal should be "Happiness" here defined as the fulfillment of the self potential to its maximum expression.
So I'm not speaking about the cheap happiness we can buy with drugs or Saturday shopping spree, I'm referring to that exhilarating sensation of "being in the flow".
I personally remember once being in that state while snowboarding nighttime with friends in the Italian Dolomiti alps, a beautiful crisp night full of stars and 2 inches of fresh powder under my feet.
The Cloud
Here we have two necessary condition one is to have time and the other is to develop new skills and hone the one we already possess. Having time is helped by technology, in this extreme example gen Ai while practicing and honing skills often require the conscious willful effort to abandon an helping tech to be able to "stretch and flex" our muscles fully.
For our brain it means making decisions, maybe even wrong decisions, feelings the pain and frustration of learning: from books, from experience, from mistakes.
Here's the catch if we have a cheap access to a "genius of the lamp" that can do anything for us, potentially better than we would be able to do, surely better if we are at the beginning of our learning journey, why should we take the effort of doing it on our own?
Because we own the right and I would dare say the self-obligation to make ourselves happy, not cheaply happy but greatly happy and this requires that particular wisdom of saying "No" to easy things because the goal should not make it quick, or better, the goal is us. Is making ourselves better, is making ourselves happier and this requires application and consistency there can't be any shortcut. It's a kind of happiness that requires sweat and dedication.
If you are parent, like me, it means leave your childs bathing in their struggles and in their frustrations and prompting them to get out with their own forces, as much as this could be painful to your heart you need to acknowledge that not doing so would be more harmful for their life.
I will continue writing here on buy me a coffee, as it helps me reasoning and I will continue using gen Ai when I see it fit. But I decided to signal with a simple icon if the content is "helped" or not. Especially for me, because I need to see if I'm getting better at it.
Have a great week.