The Uncomfortable Truth About Our AI Habit

The Uncomfortable Truth About Our AI Habit

We've all become quietly addicted to our AI assistants. ChatGPT opens before our morning coffee. We draft emails, create presentations, even tackle strategic thinking with a quick prompt. It's seductive – why wrestle with a blank page when AI can give us a head start?

Don't get me wrong – AI is genuinely great. It's revolutionised how we work, and let's be realistic, it's inevitable. This technology isn't going anywhere. But here's what's bothering me: I'm noticing something happening to the people around me, and if I'm honest, to myself.

Last week, a brilliant friend I've worked with for years sat in a meeting, struggling to articulate a concept that would have rolled off her tongue effortlessly two years ago. She kept reaching for her phone. Another colleague mentioned feeling "mentally sluggish" when his laptop died during a presentation. No backup AI meant no backup thinking.

The research backs up what many of us are quietly experiencing. When 88% of professionals rely on AI for writing, and 63% report feeling foggy afterwards, we're looking at something more serious than a productivity trend. We're potentially rewiring how we think.

I'm not suggesting we ditch these tools – they're genuinely transformative when used thoughtfully. But I am questioning whether we're creating a generation of leaders who can't think without their digital crutches.

The key is consuming responsibly.

Think of it like alcohol or social media – powerful, potentially beneficial, but requiring conscious boundaries. The executives I most admire combine deep human insight with smart technology use. They leverage AI for research and initial drafts, but their strategic thinking, their ability to read a room, their creative problem-solving – that's all them.

Maybe it's time we started treating AI like we treat calculators. Invaluable for complex calculations, but we still need to understand the underlying mathematics.

The sharpest minds I know are already setting boundaries. AI for efficiency, yes. But the thinking that really matters? That stays human. Consuming AI responsibly – take advantage of its power without letting it replace our core cognitive abilities.

What are you noticing in your own work? Are we collectively getting sharper, or are we outsourcing the very skills that made us valuable in the first place?

The future belongs to those who can harness AI's potential while keeping their human edge sharp. That's the balance we all need to find. Makes Sense?