AI will replace you. Someone who uses AI better will replace you. Why are you not AI native? Why don’t we have more AI use cases? And all the other AI FOMO rubbish. I’ve been deep into models and AI for decades. But such exhortations irritate me. Much of it comes from people with a vested interest.
But I can understand why AI makes people anxious. AI has also made me feel like there’s always more to be done. Especially as an independent.
Relatively busy week. Coffee with someone who heads AI and data governance. Lunch with an association about training. A full day teaching a room of bankers. Calls with a stock exchange, a European university, a governance institute, and a couple more. Discussions on advisory panels I may join. Building and writing stuff. And a watercolor most nights, before bed.
I have started wanting a simpler life. And more time doing what I enjoy. Some of it involving AI. Some not. Which led to some reflections on how to deal with AI’s effects on real life.
AI Hype & Reality
The AI discourse has become exhausting, and sometimes pointless.
Every other week something new drops and everyone performs awe. Every conference has a panel on what AI means for your job, or the latest ‘new’ use cases for AI. Frontier companies are now competing among themselves to see who is worse at cybersecurity and then writing open letters to scare everyone into taking responsibility for their mess.
I have been asked to do talks to excite folks about AI more than once. I usually decline or just talk about why excitement is not the best way forward. Not because I don’t know the use cases. Because I don’t see the point. Most use cases are variations of the same handful of tasks. The names change. But what’s underneath does not.
But I have to admit that AI has changed the pace at which I work.
I can now build a working app in a day or two, fully wired to a database, authentication, payments, LLMs and the works. I built a modular deck system on AI and AI governance last week that means I will never build a course from scratch again. I no longer use slides for my courses, but a learning platform I built over a fortnight, with demos, exercises, and hands-on, which also serves as my personal Mentimeter/Slido and PigeonHole. And I wired the learning platform to a whole range of AI testing libraries this Saturday. While also working on an AI screening app that allows clients to fully customize questions based on their context.
And so I find that AI has also started to hurt me.
Learning to Detach Again
Employees have structure. A job description. A manager. A defined scope. Which acts as a filter.
I have always been good at detaching at work. Work is work. Life is life.
But as an independent, there is no filter.
Every new thing arrives as a potential opportunity or a potential threat. Every new capability is a decision. Build with this? Offer this? Learn this? Ignore this? The decision is entirely mine. And when AI removes the friction from building, the temptation is to build and build and build. It can sometimes be close to an addiction.
But I have slowly realized that I need to detach as an independent too. Especially since AI makes you feel that you can always do more. And you start forgetting when to slow down.
And so I have become more deliberate.
More watercolors. Every night. Slowly. By hand. On paper. The change in pace stills my mind and heart before bed.
Replying slower. Not every message needs an immediate response. Not every opportunity needs an immediate yes or no. It gives my mind and heart time to reach a better decision.
Filtering out gigs. The ones that don’t pay. The ones that are interesting but not the right fit. The ones that are not worth any time. Better to use the time to build something of my own or spend time with family.
Choosing calls instead of face to face coffees or meetings. Thirty minutes on the call instead of two hours getting out of the house and back. Now that I have no office, every random coffee costs me a lot more time.
The goal is not to do less or slow down. But to slow down and pace myself.
So that I can live a simpler life.
#SimplyBoringAI #IndependentLife #AIRiskManagement #Transitions #Reflections
Great article on the importance of boundaries as an independent. Just curious, what do you see as a more reasonable or helpful narrative about generative AI? What should we be telling ourselves about it?