The last few months have felt like living in a twilight zone.
Everywhere I turn, it is the same message. More AI. Use AI. AI will take jobs. AI will solve everything. AI will make us smarter.
And yet, I am having the opposite experience.
I sat down recently to write some Python. Nothing crazy. Just code. I opened IntelliJ, and my brain went completely blank. No starting point. No structure. My head was completely empty.
My first reaction was to open AI. And then I stopped.
Why do I need AI to tell me how to start writing Python? I have written a million lines of code. I have taken the classes. I have presented on this stuff. I have blogged about it. I even took a graduate-level Python course that explicitly banned AI. I know this stuff.
Why couldn’t I do it then?
I sat there for twenty minutes, walking through the problem in my head, forcing myself to rebuild the steps instead of outsourcing them. Eventually, I needed a break, so I went to get tacos.
That is where it got weirder.
I got into my Jeep and started driving down the street. I figured I would go to a taco place I have been to 100 times. I have lived here for years. My instinct was to say, “Siri, take me to…” and then I caught myself.
No. Not today, Satan.
I decided I would find it without GPS.
I drove around for an hour, maybe more. Everything was closing. I ended up at a Thai place instead. At least I found my way home.
Sitting in the driveway, I started thinking about small things. Like, if I needed to call my mom, could I? No. She changed her number ten years ago, and I put it in my phone. I would need tech to do it for me, just like finding the taco place I have been to 100 times.
As the week went on, I started noticing that things were getting weirder.
Stuff I know I know, but suddenly cannot talk to. Like NUMA nodes during a conversation in a meeting. I understand them. I work with them. But I could not explain them.
What the heck is going on?
I was all in on AI. I really thought it was creating efficiency. Now I think it is making me stupid. Spelling words. Simple concepts. Even how to have conversations or reply to people. Sometimes it feels like tech is making me less human and more robotic.
At PASS, a friend joked that AI was like a drug. Everyone is using it, and once you stop, you have withdrawals. We all laughed at the table.
I am starting to see a different perspective.
AI has consumed work life, tech, and even my brain. And the weird part is, the more I disconnect from it, the better I get at troubleshooting and actually knowing concepts again.
So is this just me? I do not want to forget how to think for myself.
Is this crazy, or am I the only schizo person on this crazy train? I worried about the future. Will people stop remembering how to do things without AI? I am back to books, whiteboards, and building that muscle memory. Maybe AI can fix my grammar or cook my meals. It will not replace my brain.
Have you experienced this? Let me know if you have similar issues.
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