I remember clicking on the link the day ChatGPT was announced. I wasn't that amazed by it, but it moved so fast. Changing what felt like every hour.
I've now included AI in most of my processes. I treat it basically like a magical tool.
I'm not saying I'm completely oblivious to the risks, the downsides, and everything that comes with it. I'm just saying that I've actively come to the conclusion that, personally, I want to go all in on AI.
I'm not shy anymore about integrating it into my daily routines. I've made over 25 projects this summer with AI, and I'm not planning to stop. It is SO much fun. And I'm interested in a web people can infuse it with their artistic sensibilities and weird ideas. I just want to be part of that.
But both for myself and, I think, for the world (grand sentence, maybe) I want to document how I'm planning to go all in without losing the human side of me, and while keeping the ability to do things for myself without it.
I'm going to keep thinking physical
This is important for me because I'm the kind of person who could really lose herself in a screen, not move for days on end, and not find it weird. So I'm keeping it physical.
That's one thing AI has actually helped me with. It freed my hand and by extension, my whole body. Dictation, and the yapping-moving that comes with it, has become a way for me to move while getting things out of my brain. I'm actually dictating this text while walking back and forth in my study.
I'm making a point of using my standing desk most of the time, changing positions often, and having something to play with my hands at all times. It's a way to remind myself that I'm not just a brain. I'm also a body.
At the beginning of the year, I like to set a word intention for myself. This year, the word was physical: getting into a relationship with my body, dancing, moving, feeling it, feeding it right, resting it when it needs to rest...
That's probably the most important rule of this list because it has implications for how I work with AI.
AI can do the nitty-gritty work. It can get started on a big project. But the decision and making all happens inside my body. I'm going with my gut, my brain, and my own ideas, so my nervous system and my brain are still piloting the machine. Both the body-machine and the actual AI machine.
I'm keeping relationships human
I haven't plugged everything into my AI. I still think some things need to stay entirely human.
Maybe it's because my online noise is low, so I don't have a problem of scale doing this. I reply personally to my emails. AI doesn't even have access to them. Every DM that I send, I send myself. Every tweet that I send, I send myself. Everywhere I'm on social media, it's really me. Not even via another platform.
The relationship part of things is, and will remain for me, entirely human.
That is not to say I never use AI to analyze things. I actually made myself a skill to analyze tricky situations that my autistic brain sometimes cannot understand. I call it Gut Check. It asks me what my body feels like, so it gets me back into it, and it helps explain other people to me (to the extent that an AI can do that).
I will also sometimes use AI to format an email or find a way to explain something. But it always starts with the physical. I dictate something or write it myself, first.
The actual discussion is between two people. Well, at least on my part.
I'm making things with my hands
I'm also making a point this year of doing things with my hands. See my handmade portfolio.
I think it's super important, especially if you're a creative online, to have an artistic practice that is not on the machine. It's a way not to have a screen in front of you all the freaking time (even if my screen time would probably make most people on Substack shock-swoon).
So I'm making an effort to do things myself and with my hands: repairing stuff in my apartment, painting, going out to get things instead of ordering, cooking. I'm someone who cooks every single day. I LOVE food but I'm picky, so I cook every day and get my hands in there.
I aim to do more of those things, and to dedicate some of the time AI allows me to save to painting and singing (i have a secret goal to release an album one day - even if I'm already on most streaming platforms as a vocal artist of sorts lol). Hopefully, later, I'll dedicate some of the money AI allows me to make to that practice as well.
It's also important because it goes the other way. My physical practice informs what I do with AI.
I love using my handmade productions online. The background of my portfolio is one of my paintings. Actually, I have a thing for using paintings of all sorts in my online projects. If you look at them, there's probably an oil or acrylic painting somewhere.
It's not because it's visually cool. It's a reminder to appreciate physical things, to appreciate the things that have actual texture, and to bring a little bit of that human bit into a digital thing.
I'm using AI to be more ambitious, but also to stay sane
I've set up my system in a way that pushes me to be more ambitious, but also reminds me to rest and to do the physical stuff. It's not just that I remind myself. I've set up my AI so that it reminds me, too.
For the moment, I'm really interested in using AI to get things started for me (like with : i made it easy to start my day), so that when I arrive, some of the gritty work has already been done. I can move faster, have the information I need right away, and make the decisions.
I could do more in that area. But I'm trying to find a good balance at the moment.