AI as procrastination and bandaid
I can empathize with using AI sometimes; like when a search engine shows no fitting results, or when searching for a loose synonym or jargon with a vague description. Another use case would be generating silly, annoying filler text no one wants to write (like motivational letters) or when you’re not understanding a code problem or parts of the documentation.
But also, I notice I am most inclined to use it when my mind circles around uncomfortable decisions that aren’t easy on me, that don’t have a definitive, all positive, straightforward answer and are a confusing act of weighing the pros and cons. The outcome of it seems to switch every day depending on my mood.
It’s been a confusing process getting myself to go look for jobs, growing comfortable with leaving what I know and facing the idea of moving. It’s a lot to consider career-wise and privately.
My current employer cannot give me this and that, but it feels safe; on the other hand, I’ll also stagnate and not gain the experience I need, and I won’t live closer to friends and family. Nonetheless, employers elsewhere are a mystery and you’ll never know what you’ll get, not to mention they will likely not give me the exact niche I want. It’s easy to feel like I’ll make a mistake no matter what I choose, and a fearful part of me would rather freeze and make a mistake by not acting, than move and actively make a mistake. It’s no way to move through life, and something I will get over, but it’s understandable.
To add salt to the wound, moving is hard. Merging two households into one is harder. I dread having to apply, to perform, to beg for an apartment, and find an affordable one that is big enough for two, on only one income.
It’s stuff like this that has urged me thrice in a span of two months to enter my different concerns, predictions, possible paths and dilemmas into the text box and expect some guidance and reassurance, some easy way out I hadn’t thought of before.
The result: I often get some reassurance through its sycophancy, a chance to sort my thoughts a bit, and a level of feedback I can’t get from people because either they don’t (have to) think about career the way I do and don’t know what to do either (irl), or I don’t wanna completely doxx myself in front of them with all the fine details of my work and plans (online).
For the little reassurance and guidance the AI gives that make the path forward seem more clear, it is simply a bandaid also, a way to further procrastinate. Instead of taking the actions I know I have to take, something in me thinks to roll the slot machine once more to advise me in hopes of finding something better that is not as hard, the option to have my cake and eat it too. It’s equivalent to spending all your time buying supplies and doing research for a project or hobby than actually committing to it.
The option to consult the bot has quickly trained me to think that if I just reword it one more time, add this and that detail, or add another question, that it will suddenly spit out an ideal path forward for me to follow in which I will have to make no concessions, despite knowing that that’s impossible.
Life is simply full of hard decisions and concessions, and difficult times make us grow. Even after just indulging in it so little, I understand now how people worldwide get hooked on this virtual pacifier for their fears.
The obsession of that thing to create lists and 5-year plans over anything makes it all look more bearable, even if half the suggestions don’t exist or don’t make sense. It’s tempting to hope that with all the data behind it, the machine will conceive of something you couldn’t have, will find and present something you didn’t know of that changes everything. It’s genuinely just a coping mechanism, a crutch. It’s not even productive to do this.
I hope you can catch these behaviors in yourself and act accordingly. Don’t postpone what you know you have to do and don’t outsource the decision to a bot.
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