It’s All About Tradeoffs

Why are we shooting ourselves in the foot?

We are bringing in AI to every aspect of our lives. Especially when it comes to high level creative tasks, using AI means that we are using less of our brains. The brain is how we are creative and live to our highest potential. When we shut our brains off, we are killing ourselves.

Think about it. The more you watch TV the less creative you become. The more you are on your phone, the less creative you become.

Think about when you were a kid running around in the woods, you were the most creative, imaginative person. Now, that you’ve been subjected to your phone and become it’s slave you have no creative juices left. Or at least they become harder to find.

On the reverse side, we don’t want to have our time cluttered with tedious tasks. Repetitive motions that don’t help us either. It’s why the dishwasher, washing machine, and other house-hold appliances were created. To take away these tedious tasks.

It’s why electric light was created. Furnaces were created. So that the tasks of getting fuel for light or fire were cut to zero. It also makes us dependent on electricity and the grid. Which can go off at the flick of a switch.

No matter the choices that we make, there are trade-offs. The question you have to ask, are they worth it? Is it worth losing your creativity? Is it worth being dependent on the electrical grid?

I also think about driving. Like in my Honda, I have the change lanes camera on my passenger side. So when I’m in a car that doesn’t have this feature where the camera shows on my central console my passengers side I find myself not looking in my passenger mirror. Meaning that I’m a less safe driver in other cars.

Now, take this small example and push that to a Tesla. When in a tesla and you have all this information in real-time displayed on your dash. You have lane keeping technology. Collision avoidance. All of this technology that is really cool and when it works, makes you a safer driver.

However, now when a Tesla owner gets into a rental car, they are dangerous. They do not know how to drive a basic car. No lane keeping. No collision avoidance. Their reflexes are slow. They are dangerous.

I believe over time that the insurance companies will correct for this as more and more data comes in. But this is an example of what handing over your thinking abilities does to a person.

The same goes when you don’t use simple math anymore and rely on a calculator for everything. You are no longer able to know if something is in the ballpark. You don’t have a sense of whether something is right or not. This is hugely important in engineering.

When you have no clue whether it should be in the ball park of 10, 100, or 1,000 – you will be off in calculations, which is then dangerous.

Again, what tradeoffs do you make?