Occasionally, I remember how my mind worked before AI. It was slower, but careful, nuanced, creative, and strategic. Now, I spend my days working intensely with AI, as we are asked to be AI-first, and I’ve learned I’m quite good at it. But as I described to a friend on Threads, this creates intense internal conflict.
While working with AI feels tremendously rewarding at the moment, it depletes me and consumes all of my brain power leaving no remaining room for the artist I used to be in my “off hours.”
I responded to my friend who described people who are AI prompters as idiots who don’t understand that talent is internal, who without AI remain untalented. I know with conviction that my talent is internal. The issue is that I am willing to let AI feast on my talent while my soul faces famine. There is nothing left at the end of the day.
My fiancé and I recently traveled to Europe for the trip of a lifetime. We spent over two weeks in the Mediterranean starting in Barcelona and stopping in places such as Cannes, Florence, Rome, Sicily, as well as Malta and Palma de Mallorca (my favorites). During our travels, we experienced rich history, art, food, and adventure.
It took me a week to simply relax and enjoy it, as I felt guilty to not be working. I was so used to being intensely focused in silence all day. Over the course of our time together, I remembered who I am, and most importantly, what fuels me.
It is discovering places like Malta that I knew little of before, and falling in love.
It was laughing as the wind nearly blew us over as we climbed the craters of Mount Etna in Sicily. It was the schools of different colored fish and the small glowing neon purple jelly fish in the turquoise waters of Palma de Mallorca. And then rounding the corner of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya to see a painting, Sota l'Ombrella by Lluís Masriera i Rosés, that made me weep.
By the time we came home, I felt so alive. I felt whole again. And then I returned to the world of an AI-first environment and quickly felt the balance shift.
As I see the shift in business beyond my own, I am left to wonder whether it truly benefits society to treat employees as commodities to be consumed. Because while I now know with conviction that I am intelligent, savvy, and good at what I do, I have to wonder how much better I would be if I could slow down, read a book, relax enough to listen to music during the work day, or carefully construct strategies with research I do myself, and use sources I find completely unaided by AI.
Isn’t it possible that we can be talented, creative, and use tools such as apps or AI, but not lose sight of who we are as whole people? That you can respect me for my ability to use AI in a strategic and advanced way while knowing that I am still a whole person capable of more? I’d like to believe so.This is what I’m striving for in the months and years to come.