Blog
"Doombuilding"
For the past few years AI has been heavily integrated into my life. I've used it to plan projects, learn in and out of school, basic how-tos, and general advice. I've realized that I rely too heavily on AI and constantly find myself even delegating decision-making in my projects. I always ask it what it thinks and often go with whatever it tells me.
Days go by where sometimes AI is the only thing I talk to... and when I come out of it I don't feel like I've spent days working hard on a project, rather I feel more similar to when I stop doom scrolling for a couple hours. A zombie-like state that disguises itself as productivity (because at least I "made" something). While I've been able to build various systems and workflows with AI, I can't shake the feeling that I'm not actually learning and growing.
My projects feel like me constantly having to go back and learn what AI built, rather than using my existing knowledge and slowly building upon it. While I do try to make the effort to understand what I just built, the speed at which I build with AI often outpaces it.
It's hard to just stop using AI, and also unreasonable to, given that execution speed would slow down significantly. It's also hard to balance usage because what would take hours to learn and create now takes minutes to prompt and see it live. I can use it, test it, figure out what's wrong, and ask AI to fix it.
Maybe this is simply where the world is shifting. But I've noticed that many of my projects that I've built just simply get archived and I don't really use it more than once. And so it becomes an endless cycle of using AI to create an application, forget about it, and then going back to AI to create something else. It's addicting, and dangerous.
Honestly, I think this isn't too different from mindlessly scrolling social media. Just like swiping to see the next video, I create a new chat to make the next project, only to quickly forget about it and move on. None of the skills required to make the project really stick, much less even come to surface since AI has removed the need for it. And so it just becomes an endless void of project creation void of any critical thinking or real learning.
I've recently shifted towards more hardware focused projects, where I've had to build devices on my own and learn how things actually work. But I've noticed that I still feel in this state of limbo where I've used AI and social media so much that my brain is just used to that mindless and quick execution.
I'm currently stuck right now, figuring out what I want to do with my life. I've always been interested in building (especially in tech) but I've gone so many years of this type of building and seeing the world shift towards this, it's hard to just step back and re-evaluate. I'm currently doing my undergraduate in business as I figured that would be a timeless and adaptable education resistant to AI. I've considered switching out, since most of the paths in business didn't really interest me (consulting, banking, investing etc).
The last time I can remember feeling truly motivated towards something was when I had my personal venture with "Castify": a book-to-podcast AI service that cloned the authors voice and generated weekly podcasts featuring snippets of their books. While the idea generated some interest, the product wasn't a fit for authors who's reputation and voice couldn't risk a sloppy AI clone of their voice being published.
I want to carve my own path, but honestly I don't know where or how to start. I think at the very least I need to stop endlessly building with AI, and explore in the real world. Experience different aspects of life. Anyone can build anything these days, but building something truly useful is difficult. I still have one more project I am working on, but once that is complete I'm gonna take a break from building with AI and trying to keep up with every new model or harness release.