Combating mental AI fog
I was an early adopter of GitHub Copilot. Initially, I was shocked at how much time I could save by delegating boilerplate code to this tool. But writing code is not the only thing I do, so how about regular writing? ChatGPT made everyone an OK writer. Quality of results aside, it is a fact that generative AI tools generally improve performance. Right?
I have a few problems with it thogh. It is not fun! I spent years learning codeing and I am super proud of this skill. A few things became quicker after adopting some AI tools, but tons of fun disappeared. The joy of doing a thing is important, but the mental AI fog that occurred to me was much worse. I like the “mental AI fog” term coined by Garrit Franke on “Mental AI Fog and how to cure it”.
Instead of consuming too much AI generated content (which also applies), AI Fog describes the inability to produce content without the help of AI.
A few months after I started using GiHub Copilot, I started losing muscle memory for writing basic programing constructs. I had a terrifying moment of realisation when I opened a CodePen (as I do hundreds of times a day) and struggled to use a basic switch statement. Devastating and embaressing!
Dumb things down as a remedy
Very quickly after I noticed the negative impact of AI tools on my workflow, I flipped the order of procedures, and instead of using them from the get-go, nowadays, I treat them more as a last validation step. I switched from a fancy, AI-overloaded code editor to a super simple one. “The joy of learning Helix (and probably other modal, terminal-based editors)” goes more in-depth about the switch. The fun is back!
My writing routine was also massively changed. Instead of starting with the AI-powered tool, I start with a handwritten draft using the Apple Freeform app on my iPad Pro. There is something magical about scribbled sketches, crossed paragraphs and a maze of arrows on an infinite canvas. Translating handwritten ideas into a few paragraphs in the Markdown file doesn’t take long. As a final validation of gramma and spelling, I run it through Grammarly or ChatGPT. “Change the tone of voice” or “make it shorter” defeats the purpose of writing something by myself in the first place, so I never use these commands. I spent time and effort expressing my thoughts, and I prefer them to be sketchy but mine instead of perfectly polished but generated by a tool.
I don’t want this post to be a rant for generative AI tools because I use them daily. I just wanted to share with you how I use them, to keep things fun without ever risking myself being in the “mental AI fog” again. Call me oldschool, or even stupid, but I find everything a lot more rewarding when I put some effort into it. Using a pen for writing feels good. Music sounds deeper from the spinning on the turntable record. The time it takes to develop an analogue camera film makes a picture more memorable. But all this is a story for another article.
I have similar experience. Thanks for sharing.
Great post. I really agree with your points, and recommend the workflow of: Pick up your pen and paper and start sketching and writing, then make your draft into a document by for example writing it with markdown, and then start creating and fixing.