Right in the middle of 2024 it seems AI is everywhere. Certainly every electronic device is now shipped with some form of AI, cars use AI, cameras use AI, even fridges and toasters use AI. AI has become the buzzword of 2024 and it seems to be hard to ship new products without having AI in mind. But does this all make sense? What's the purpose of AI, what are the disciplines where AI is really transformative and soon will be unthinkable without the use of AI?

This won't be another tech story, another summery of the state of AI in 2024. This is much more a personal approach, a logbook of how I use or do not use AI at the beginning of a new era of computation.

1/30 s, f/1.6, ISO 1000, 26 mm, iPhone 12 Pro Max

I like computing, I like machines, I like tech. It's not just the piece of machinery itself that attracts me, it's also about the capabilities, the problems it can solve, the tasks it can do or at least can assist me in doing. So I should stand maybe not in the first row, but surely in the second row of computer nerds to adopt and use these new AI assistants in as many places as possible. But it's also true that I'm not exactly an early adopter. Usually I'm going to wait two or three iterations of a new technology to mature until I really know what I'm getting myself into.

So here am I and here's AI. And so far we both have not become close friends that much. There's no actual resistance in me in using AI tools, I also don't seem to have many prejudices against this new technology. It's just, I don't seem to have many tasks during my day that would justify the use of AI. So my onging question these days is not so much "What can AI do?" but more like "What can AI do for me?". And seriously I haven't found a promising answer so far.

The nerdiest thing I do today seems to be transcribing podcasts and videos and using them as a starting point for my then hand crafted summaries. These tools are handy and overall work pretty well. And it's way faster for me to read a transcript than watch a whole video or listen to a podcast. The written word seems to be pretty effective in that regard.

I use AI tools to edit a tiny portion of my images, erase unwanted objects or people or tweak certain backgrounds. But my use cases do not go much deeper than the possibilities an advanced healing brush can provide me.

Very rarely and more like a proof of concept I use an AI chat tool to provide me with prompts for future writing projects. Again I just use these suggestions as a springboard to start my own synapsis going.

I also want to mention that so far I don't pay for any of these services. At this point all these tools are nice and sometimes come in handy, but they are not at all essential for my work. It's more like the opposite. Thinking about how and where to use these new features often feels like an additional burdon, like an additional step that gets in the way accomplishing my goals.

In a way AI seems to be nothing magical to me, thrusting some initial reactions of surprise and admiration aside. AI is just another tool, like a pencil (which doesn't fully replace the pen and isn't meant to be) or like a toaster (which doesn't fully replace the oven). Currently it seems to me that there are only very specific, very niche use cases that fully enjoy the power and the magic of AI. But besides these niches there are still vast fields of both dumb as well as fulfilling tasks where AI is completely absent. This might change, maybe, but I'm not completely sold on that. I'm sure we will see more and more AI buttons everywhere that help us with certain specific tasks, but these general, Star Trek like assistants still seem to be far away. Including the current context of a question or a task is obviously way harder than I thought it would be.

In a way I admire coders who can more or less dictate program code in natural language and working snippets of code are spit out by the machine. A machine that programs itself. That's magical. It makes me want to code. That's a use case, for sure. But all the other tasks that the machine doesn't know of seem to be left out so far. AI can't handle my taxes for me. Probably I would have to create my own version of an AI tool with my own training data to become really helpful in that regard. And so far that's still a task of its own. And I'm not sure if I rather would spend my time training AI models or just sit there and do my taxes.

Also there seems to be this dividing line between the tools and the craft. AI might be a good tool, but at least at this point it's not suited to do the craft. And maybe it never should. First of all doing the craft all by yourself is pure fun and magic, I would never give up on that. But also it's the easiest way to unlearn thinking. And thinking seems to be key for all of us, now more than ever. If we start to become lazy and start forgetting how much fulfillment and inner understanding knowledge work or creative work really can bring, there's maybe not much hope for all of us. And in that case we don't even deserve better. In that case we were just the race that was able to develop the machines that soon replaced us. The end. No afterthoughts.

Until I know better my key understanding of this evolving shift towards AI is to try to stay ahead of the curve. Use my brain, my inner muscles, my everything more, not less. Doing the hard work. Going the extra mile. Identifying laziness. So bring yourself into a position where you actually like to work, like to think, like to question ideas. And never forget that standing still, procrastination, aimless scanning of social media feeds or the news, is never fulfilling. Bring yourself in a position to feel better, not worse. And maybe, most importantly, be aware of how you feel. Mindfulness, humility, humanity, gracefulness, empathy are part of our inner core, they form our foundation as human beings. Use that and behave like that. Even and even more so in a future where an advanced AI might be capable of feeling "human", too.

It's September 2024 and that's the first version of this script. I plan to update and iterate these thoughts and feelings when technology has evolved or matured or changed again in significant ways. That's AI and I, until then. Staying curious.