Is That a Monster in Your Pocket?

As I sit here, talking to the butt end of my phone, I can't help but feel an uneasiness rumbling down near my bones. Sure, this is good for my mental health, and my head feels clear and focused when it's free of the mental crust I accumulate each day. But what will it cost me later?

I'm using AI to transcribe my voice notes. I'm using AI because my executive function isn't always on deck to formulate thoughts on paper or at a keyboard. And while I know that the app I use if end-to-end encrypted, I can't shake off the feeling that I'm giving away something of myself each time I press the little microphone button.

In German folklore, Faust traded his soul for knowledge and worldly pleasures. In American folklore, Robert Johnson met the devil at the Crossroads to learn guitar. The comparison is obvious: knowledge for your soul. Every time I use AI, I gain the power to search and retrieve insights from my own thoughts, to connect dots between fragmented and forgotten ideas. AI promises me new revelations and creative superpowers—which it often delivers. But is AI a beast that I am feeding by contributing more data to power these AI?

And who knows what the future holds? Will my private journals be used against me in some dystopian future where every digital thought is monitored and cataloged? It's a terrifying possibility.

But, is it really any worse than what we've already acclimated ourselves to doing every day? We carry phones that ping our location to towers, we photograph and share personal moments, we leave digital footprints wherever we go. Haven't we already accepted the bargain?

There are people, some of whom are in my family, who dwell on paranoid visions of future chips implanted into our skin. But the chips are already here. They're in our pockets. We keep them near our bed while we sleep and take it with us into the bathroom. We feel lost without them. And no one needed subterfuge to to do it. They charged us $1000 and we paid.

And yet, there's something about AI that feels different, riskier. Maybe it's the scale, the possibility of what can be done with models trained on the collective thoughts and experiences of billions of people. Maybe it's just the old fear of the unknown; the friction of innovation; the blind uncertainty of what AI is truly capable of.

What choice do we have? When you resist the charge of technology what do you gain? Pride? Righteousness? Evangelical fervor? Those who opt out are simply left behind. There aren't a lot of salesmen without cell phones, email addresses, and CRMs. The resisters died out.

One person refusing to use plastic won't save the planet. One person avoiding AI hale the revolution. Technology is a door that continually opens. It never closes.

All I can say that nervous voice inside is "stay vigilant." Use these tools. Augment your intelligence, your productivity, and your creativity, but never losing sight of the human element that burn beneath it all.

My hope is to look foolish in the future; to look back through my old notes and stumble upon this passage, and laugh. "What a nothing-burger that was." And if I'm wrong, then there won't be anyone to look back.