Will AI replace me?

That is both a correct and an incorrect question. Maybe it's more appropriate to ask: will AI eradicate my individuality?

AI will most likely not take away your job completely. As the saying goes: "AI won't replace you, a person using AI will". So, should we all just start using AI for everything? Will it empower us to achieve what was thought impossible?

Maybe, but both viewpoints are too limited in scope. The danger I see with the use of frictionless AI is this: it will not replace you, it might smooth out your individuality!

Both the use of psychedelics and a meditative praxis can lead to the dissolution of the self, the ego. The effects of even the strongest psychedelic will eventually cease.

In both Buddhism and Hinduism compassion, service, a return and integration into society are fundamental. A loss of self without return is pathology, not enlightenment.

The use of AI can lead to a smoothing of decision-making, it reduces struggle, and minimizes error. It achieves that by eliminating micro-frictions: hesitation, uncertainty, taste development, and even failure.

Our human individuality is not a fixed trait. It depends on and is maintained by: personal effort, and inner and outer resistance. Systems, no matter if technological or political in nature, that optimize these frictions away do not free us; they reshape us!

Personal meaning, and thus individuality, come from choice, failure, and trying again. It might feel helpful, like a relief, to outsource those. It might feel like that at first, but it might eventually hollow out authorship over time.

Did you decide or did AI? Did you make this or did AI? Who are you in this process?

It's tricky since AI does not remove choice. It recommends, pre-shapes, and nudges. This approach to AI is extremely efficient, guided, and externally steerable.

It could lead to a sort of hive-mind mentality: comfort without choice, peace without dissent, and harmony without difference – sounds familiar?

The real danger is not tyranny, it is anesthesia!

So, it is not job loss or a collapse of creativity, that we should primarily fear. It is loss of cognitive texture, loss of disagreement, loss of inner resistance. This could lead to a society that sounds smart, acts fast, and seems aligned, but that thinks way less.

Psychedelics require breaks to integrate the experience. Meditative practices require proper guidance.

Do we need friction around the use of AI? Do we need deliberate pauses?

The danger of AI does not seem to lie in its use per se. It lies in its unreflective and frictionless use. I do not reject the use of AI. I call for its intentional use.

It should amplify judgment, not replace it! The future will not be an improved experience to today if we allow smarter machines to take over. It will be if we remain the authors of our own thinking.

At what point does assistance quietly become authorship?