I thought I'd do something different and write this without AI, so go easy on me!
Everything's moving fast. At first, everyone used AI for a little help. Then, as the results looked promising, it became part of daily life. Now it's settled in for good, and we end up checking with AI before sending anything. Remember that last part.
So our emails are better structured, more polished, more thorough, and longer. But since the person on the other side is using AI too, we end up sending and receiving walls of text with technical details and analysis. It takes time to read, analyze, and understand. What do we do? We use AI to write the reply.
Where does this lead?
One AI talking to another. The funny thing is, people are already worried that AI will take control away from humans. But AI doesn't take control. We hand it over. Maybe the saying "I used my own hands to poke my own eyes out" fits here.
Earlier, I told you to remember the phrase "we check with AI before sending anything." We've gone beyond that. We don't just check with it, we've made it our go-to. Who hasn't heard things like, "Well, AI said so..." or "What do you mean, doctor? I put it in AI and it said..."?
Two more connected problems come up here.
First problem. Let me be clear: the more I use AI, the more I appreciate its help, answers, suggestions, and the time it saves me. But I can't ignore that, even though every AI system says something like "I might be wrong, check the info I give you" at the bottom of the screen, most people trust it completely. The risk is that, slowly but surely, we lose our critical thinking.
Second problem. Combine that with careless, incomplete, or vague prompts, and it all comes together. What happens?
- We ask AI for advice the wrong way
- The answer isn't great because we didn't give enough info
- But since the answer came from AI, we take it at face value. Soon, we might not even read the answer, or we'll have lost a lot of our own judgment. That's when things really get out of hand!
So what do we do? We don't banish AI. We just need to keep control. How?
- Give it the right and full picture before asking for anything
- Check what it suggests, especially when it matters
- And always do a quick review to cut out anything extra or unnecessary before you hit send.
