The cost of convenience in the age of AI

"People don't drive around with their windows down anymore, and it shows."

This is my latest profound hot take, which might not actually be that profound, but hear me out.

Back in the "late 1900s," I drove around with my windows down a lot more than I do today. While my car had air conditioning, it was pretty terrible and ineffective.

I have fond memories of my teenage self driving around town with the windows down — hearing the sounds, smelling the smells, and experiencing the earthly reality of 1900s life.

This meant anything from freshly cut grass to way too much exhaust. Cars were definitely not as efficient as they are today.

There is something freeing about driving around, windows down, on a cool summer evening, wind blowing through the vehicle and my hair. Yes, I had hair in the 90s — long, flowing locks, actually.

I oddly have a sense of loss about this, and sometimes I drive around with the windows down for nostalgia's sake.

I do love the air conditioning in my current vehicle. I especially love it on summer days in the Pacific Northwest where we are ravaged with wildfires, and I can put my windows up, turn on my AC, and be protected from the smell of wildfire smoke.

But, wildfires aside, I think we have slowly lost something with the advent of good air conditioning in our vehicles.

I'm not saying we shouldn't use it; I'm just saying, when we adopt new technology with all its advantages, we tend to lose something. It happens slowly, and sometimes we don't even realize it until it's long gone.

When it comes to air conditioning, we trade the experience of the culture, the town, the environment around us for a comfortable ride.

This isn't a bad thing.

But if we aren't careful or thoughtful, we won't notice how these improvements are also changing the ways we experience the world.

This, of course, brings me to AI.

It's a little bit like air conditioning in cars. It's a great improvement, something that moves society forward, but if we don't pay attention, we might not realize what we're trading its convenience for.

So yes, adopt AI, obviously. I am not arguing against it.

But as we do, let's stay aware of what we might be trading away in the process.

In all this efficiency, automation, and outsourced thinking — what are the things we are trading away?

I wrote about this last week on a LinkedIn post, and it bears repeating: I know I've been harping on AI-generated slop lately, and I do not mean to be one of those (West) Coastal Elites who think that anything generated by AI is somehow bad. I think there is something important to be said about making writing and publishing accessible to those who aren't able to do so otherwise.

But recently I read this article in The Atlantic, "The End of Reading is Here" by Rose Horowitch, and it put words to a lot of what I've been thinking and feeling.

I thought these lines were spot on:

"Writing is hard. Orwell likened the experience to a "long bout of some painful illness." AI promises a simple remedy. The trouble is that writing is not merely the act of transcribing fully formed thoughts—if it were, it wouldn't be hard. Writing is the way people figure out what they think, and how to convey those thoughts to someone who doesn't already share them."

And then this one...

"The skill of deep thinking will likely become rarer and rarer in a world where much of the population uses AI to avoid writing. It will also become more and more important."

I am not saying we should never use AI to generate content.

We just need to be mindful of what happens as we do.