The Magic Has a Price

AI hasn't replaced my thinking. It's changed what I have time to think about.

I recently saw a post about AI that made me defensive.

Not because I disagreed with everything in it. There were parts I understood. The concern was that we're becoming so dependent on AI that we're handing over our creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and even our human connection to a machine. And I get it. I really do.

But as I kept reading, I found myself thinking, That's not how I'm using it.

I use AI a lot. Probably more than a lot of people would expect. I use it to help me figure out how to set up my garden using permaculture principles, how to winterize it, and what books my son might actually connect with as we work toward the kind of education we're trying to create through LEMI. I've used it to organize a client's Google Drive faster than I could have done it manually. And right now, I'm using it to help me write this newsletter.

But here's the distinction I think gets lost in the conversation about AI: I'm not asking AI to think instead of me. I'm asking it to help me think.

My brain is busy. I have a lot of ideas, and they don't always arrive in a nice, orderly line. One thought leads to another, which reminds me of something else, which suddenly connects to a problem I'm trying to solve for a client. Then there's dinner, laundry, a child, and approximately seventeen things I forgot I needed to do.

Sometimes I need somewhere to put all those thoughts so I can actually see them.

That's one of the things AI has become incredibly useful for me. I'll come with a half-formed idea and essentially say, "Here's what I'm trying to say, but I don't think I've figured it out yet." Then we talk. Sometimes the response helps me see something I hadn't considered. Sometimes it gets me completely wrong, and I think, Nope. That's not what I mean at all. So I ask again, reword the question, challenge the response, correct it, and take the parts that are useful while throwing the rest away.

Eventually, something emerges that sounds like me because it is me. AI hasn't replaced my thinking. It has helped me get through the heavy lifting portion of thinking so I can get to the part where I make decisions.

And honestly, sometimes that's exactly what I need. When I'm overwhelmed, I don't necessarily need another person with another strong opinion telling me what I should do. Sometimes I need to dump the giant pile of thoughts in my head somewhere, look at them from another angle, and start sorting. AI has helped me clear the fog around my own thinking.

It also helps me move. Because AI can synthesize information quickly, I can often move from "I wonder how this works" to actually trying something. I don't want to spend my whole life sitting in front of a computer researching how to do things. I want to actually do the things. I want to work in my garden, cook, homeschool my son, play with him, have conversations with actual people, and notice what's growing outside my window.

If a tool helps me get there faster, I'm going to use the tool.

That doesn't mean I think every use of AI is good. There are environmental costs, privacy questions, misinformation, and situations where people can become so dependent on AI that they stop exercising their own judgment. There are also serious concerns about what happens when people, particularly vulnerable people, begin treating AI as a substitute for real human support and connection.

Those things deserve serious attention.

Maybe this is why I'm not particularly interested in declaring AI good or bad. It reminds me of the way magic works in stories. Magic gives you power, but it comes with a price. The more powerful the magic, the more carefully you have to learn how to use it.

Technology feels a lot like that to me. Every new tool gives us something we couldn't do before, or lets us do something faster. But there's usually a trade-off somewhere. The question isn't whether there is a cost. The question is whether we're willing to understand the cost and learn how to use the tool responsibly.

I don't think acknowledging those problems means we have to decide that the tool itself is inherently bad. A hammer can build a house. It can also smash a window. We don't generally look at a hammer and conclude that hammers are evil. We teach people what it's for, how to use it, and when not to use it.

Maybe AI needs the same kind of thinking.

Instead of telling people not to use it because it will make them stop thinking, perhaps we should be teaching people how to use it without giving up their responsibility to think. That distinction feels especially important when I think about children.

I want my son to grow up seeing AI as a tool. But I also want him to understand that his brain is the most powerful tool he has. I'm reminded of Doctor Who's sonic screwdriver. It's an amazing tool, but the sonic screwdriver doesn't make the Doctor the Doctor. The Doctor is still the one thinking.

My son can train his brain to play the piano, throw a ball, build a monster, write a story, calculate how big something needs to be, ask questions, and notice things other people don't notice. AI might help with some of those things, but he is still the one doing the living.

I don't want him growing up afraid of technology, and I don't want him growing up believing a machine should do everything for him. I want him to know how to think, question, investigate, create, struggle with something long enough to figure it out, and recognize when something doesn't make sense. Then, when a tool can genuinely help, I want him to know how to use it well.

Because knowing how to use AI isn't the same thing as knowing how to think. And using AI doesn't automatically mean you aren't thinking. There is a huge difference between saying, "AI, do this for me because I don't want to think about it," and saying, "Here's what I'm thinking. Help me look at this from another angle."

The first can absolutely become a problem. The second can actually strengthen your thinking.

And maybe this is where I have a slightly different perspective on the whole "AI is saving time" argument.

What are we doing with the time we save?

If AI helps me organize a client's files in an hour instead of three, what happens to those two hours? If it helps me work through a confusing idea in twenty minutes instead of staring at my computer for two hours, where does that time go?

For me, it goes back into my life.

Some of it goes into the garden. Some goes into cooking, homeschooling, and playing with my son. Some of it simply means I'm not sitting at my computer quite as long.

And that matters to me because I don't actually want a life where everything is optimized. I want a life where there's more room for living.

That's one of the reasons I'm drawn to gardening. It's one of the reasons I'm drawn to the way we approach education. And it's one of the reasons I care so much about systems in business. The point of a good system isn't to make us machines. It's to take some of the unnecessary friction out of life so we have more capacity for the things that actually matter.

Maybe AI can be part of that too.

But every powerful tool comes with a price.

I love the way stories about magic understand this. Magic rarely comes completely free. You get extraordinary power, but there are consequences. There is something you have to give, something you have to learn, or something you have to be careful about.

AI feels a little like that to me. It gives us an extraordinary amount of leverage, but there are costs. Energy, resources, privacy, misinformation, lost skills, over-reliance. We don't get to pretend those things aren't there just because the tool is useful.

But that doesn't mean we throw the magic away.

It means we learn how to wield it.

We teach our children what it can do and what it can't. We teach them to question it. We teach them to think for themselves. We teach them that sometimes the answer is to close the computer and go figure something out with their own hands.

Because the goal isn't to have magic do everything for us.

The goal is to use the magic wisely enough that it gives us more capacity for the things that only humans can do.

To garden. To create. To play. To learn. To connect. To be present.

Maybe that's the real question. Not whether AI makes us less human, but what we're choosing to do with the human time and energy it gives back.

Because if AI helps me organize a messy thought, finish an administrative task, or get unstuck on a problem, and that means I have another hour to spend in the garden, read a book with my son, make dinner, or simply sit outside and breathe...

I'm not sure that's less human.

For me, that's the whole point.

Use the tool. Question the tool. Learn what it can and can't do. Don't let it become the master.

And keep strengthening the thing that was always more powerful than the tool in the first place:

Your own mind.