Two Letter That Are Changing The World [Part II]

Artificial Intelligence thinks so you don’t have to.

It solves problems. It writes, calculates, determines, advises, assists. Not only that, it will talk to you as if it’s your best friend and most supportive colleague. It’s the employee who’s never late and never complains about lack of vacation time or pay.

They say to never look a gift horse in the mouth, but everything comes with a cost.

A few weeks ago, I opened ChatGPT and typed in the magic words.

Hey, can you help me write four blog posts?

45 minutes later, I had three drafts that I had modified to fit my own writing style. I couldn’t pull the trigger on the fourth. Through the process, I felt with increasing intensity that I was betraying my readers, that I was bringing something far less than genuine to a table that I have fought to keep clean. It felt dirty, weird and very much like cheating.

Yet, it saved me so much time that I suddenly began to feel like a weight was lifted.

I’ve spoken out many times about how the pace of social media production from a business and marketing perspective is a heavy, overwhelming hamster wheel that will never move fast enough and you can’t ever get off. This process of trying to keep up with demand inherently steals the genuine, vulnerable nature that posts should carry in the first place. It becomes coldly formulaic.

With the help of AI, I felt like that pressure was coming off and the hamster wheel slowing. I felt like I could produce regular content for you all without sacrificing all of my time. I would like to note that, blog aside, I never intended or wanted to be a content creator. I would much rather live an offscreen life the majority of the time.

I was suddenly faced with an unexpected dilemma. Do I take the easy road, or do I honour my integrity and do what’s difficult?

If you know me, you know I will always choose integrity. But I was curious, so I posed the question to my Facebook members. The feedback I received was wide-ranging but vastly skewed in one direction: real is best.

This brings to light one of the most important processes I teach.

Explore — Experiment — Discern — Decide

If you don’t try something, you won’t ever be able to come to any first hand conclusion about it. It’s through the trial and error process that you are able to navigate and read the emotions that correlate with that experience. These emotions are your guidance system and that is one of the most powerful tools you have as a human being. No artificial intelligence can tell you what is ultimately right and wrong for you.

Always, always go with your gut instinct above all else. If you don’t know how, practice.

Yes, using that tool saved me more time than I care to admit. Yes, it would make my job so much easier and it tempts me every day. But as a reader, you would lose my genuine voice. I put my heart and soul into my writing. It’s my most powerful form of self expression. Do I want to give that power away to some heartless entity?

No.

I want to bring all of me to all of you, my readers. My reach may be small because I don’t shamelessly do what needs to be done to get online attention, but my entire platform has been based on a foundation of realness. To depart from that would be to give my power away. If I give mine away, I should no longer be allowed to teach you how to keep yours.

I’m not telling you AI is bad. It has powerful implications for the world. But use it, use your discernment, and determine what’s truly right for you.

Nothing that makes life easier should be used 100% of the time. Go do hard things. Embrace challenge, and embrace the tough emotions that come with falling down. Heal yourself. Practice staying with your integrity when the world tries to pull you away. Stop seeking comfort and you will find you have the strength to handle whatever comes your way, one step at a time.

It’s far too easy to outsource your challenges. Every time you seek numbness over feeling, or ease over effort, there is something being sacrificed. Make sure you don’t overuse any of the tools that appear to have no strings attached; they very well could have sinister undertones that slowly wear away your personal power. It’s not what you do occasionally that has the biggest impact on your life, it’s what you do consistently, every day, no matter how small the action.

In similar fashion, it’s not always the big events and decisions that steal your power away, but rather the small, imperceptible shortcuts that take you someplace faster but sacrifice all the growth of discomfort along the way.

Never take anything at face value and assume its intentions are pure. Always use your power of discernment and form your own opinion. If that opinion sets you apart from the direction the rest of the world is taking, then so be it. You can stand in your own power and know you still have your integrity. This is how world changers are born.

Lean into your humanness. Life is messy, it’s supposed to be. You don’t need any shiny tools to fix that.

Never allow technology to replace what it means to be human.