I stopped drinking the AI Kool-Aid

Using AI agents to email each other is just a reflection of "If you're not going to bother to write it, I'm not going to read it"

I have removed a person from a project. Doing their share of work, paying them exactly as agreed. Because they decided to have Claude write 10 pages of feedback on about 5 pages of content I created even after I asked them for clarification. If anyone uses AI in communication, fine. If people think an LLM can express their thoughts better, than they can, ok. No problem. But if I wanted to talk to computers all day long I can already do that. I’ve been doing it close to 40 years now. The reason I work in a team is so I get to connect to actual human beings. Live people, warts and all. If I can’t get that, why would I bother? Again: I have plenty to do talking to computers.

Reasonable piece. I always thought the hope/promise of AI was to make it do the work we don't want to do so that we can enjoy life the way we want to which is typically socializing with humans? I get that it generates so much that if you are reviewing thoughtfully everything it is doing, it can suck you away like being a worker at a conveyor belt, but hopefully that is a short period of growing pains. A related take on staying human in the age of AI: https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/the-lost-subject-ai...

> Getting on a video call was eye opening in many ways. Seeing the exhaustion on his whole body.

This describes a non trivial number of my colleagues. What's more concerning is witnessing the cognitive decline, for example struggling to debug straight forward problems[1] and mindlessly copy/pasting stack traces into a chat box. While I'm definitely guilty of the latter I usually resort to that when I'm tired, or just hoping to avoid actually thinking through a problem because I have N other tasks to complete, which really ties back to the whole exhaustion thing.

Anyway thank you for putting this into words and congratulations on your recent fledglings. (I had to Google that one. Bird analogies aren't my strong suit.)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49582782

Thanks for the Bill and Ted reference at the end ;)

A lot of AI uses get endlessly debated online and outside, but the most shocking to me is that even genuine human interaction is somehow now up for debate, if I'm not interacting with real people then what even is the point of doing anything.

Maybe this is a response to becoming an empty nester. You’re entering the next phase and taking time to reflect.

The American monoculture, especially the “bigger” version you probably see in Texas, gets a little more direct observation when you’re between phases of life.

Right now the monoculture is leaning into heavily using AI in all aspects of life while also outwardly hating it… and also gambling for some reason.

You’ll probably start looking to retirement goals next, but those plans will likely go through phases themselves as grandkids may or may not enter the picture.

This won’t be the last time you have one of these out-of-body type self awareness experiences.

I'm glad for Author to write on the subject but think the article was tough to get through due to undeveloped ideas and too many cliches. I was additionally confused where the Kool Aid thing was going because the "drinking it" phrase originates from LSD/acid tests--mentioned in the wiki [1] page but not the post.

Where do we go from here and what is the intermediate ground of leveraging LLMs and Agentic AI? It's odd for me to read about someone going "all in" on AI--to the point of using it for email with humans--and then having a massive reversal.

I think this is a really interesting case study and temporal snapshot of where we are with AI technologies. I have always been wary|skeptical|cynical of the technology and this is affirming but also just confusing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid

Great essay! Thanks for posting it. I didn't know that Kool-Aid involved points and rewards, never having seen it as a child.

The manager saying, "you've got to drink the Kool-Aid" was funny and made my day.

One of the nicer blogs I’ve read on the subject, thanks Josh.

To the chagrin of the unfortunate General Foods corporation, the water flavor enhancement product used at Jones Town was actually Flavor Aid.

And maybe that's a pretty good analogy to what's going on with this post. It contemplates a world of suburban parental neglect and private burrito taxis and lays them at the feet of AI. But these were happening before LLMs burst onto the scene.

In a world of $3,000 rent and $3,000 medication and $3,000 preschool, what do you expect will happen?

Pretty sure you only get to drink the Kool-Aid once. At least in UK this is Jim Jones ref.