“AI is the root of all evil and deprivation of Earth’s resources.”
“If you use AI, you’re literally liquifying your brain.“
“You can always tell when you’re talking to someone who uses AI because they can’t even string a thought together.“
As someone who works in the AI infrastructure realm, I get it. My employer has heavily pushed us to use AI in any possible way. If we don’t use it enough, they put together volunteer teams to reach out to the rest of the employee base to find out why. Before we even had it, we had to coddle and prioritize space for the robots they attempted and failed to replace us with. I’ve physically looked robotic and AI job replacement in the ‘eye’.
I’m also an autistic person that was diagnosed, in part, because I struggle very hard at putting words to what I feel (along with a myriad of other issues). I use AI to practice it. This does not take the place of friends, family, or therapy. It is a tool. It doesn’t feel. It doesn’t think. I’m under no belief that LLM tools are my friend, lover, or therapist. I delete my chat histories and use VPNs. It doesn’t “know” me.
But this tool has truthfully helped me name what I feel. I’m getting far better at doing so on my own now. Problems with root causes that I’ve struggled to name or pinpoint are becoming clear because of this practice.
I’ve struggled greatly with money management, a keystone trait of nearly every AuDHD club member. I always have my bills paid, never have missed a payment in all of my years, but the rest… is a mess. I spent a lot on virtual currencies, skins, games, intangible things. It was easier. I would spend $150 on SecondLife and only flinch for a moment, but I’d bellyache over spending the same on a real piece of furniture that would actually help my life for years to come. The lack of logic annoyed the hell out of me, but I couldn’t stop the pattern.
Practicing expressing and digging into the “why” of what I feel without annoying or burdening the people I love, or dropping an additional fortune on my existing therapy sessions, has helped.
I have a problem with minimizing myself. I can’t be seen having a need. I take care of people. A coworker shakes my chair when I’m holding a full cup of coffee, and I instantly comfort him for his panic over hurting me. My husband tears apart my entire reality and I instantly acknowledge how hard it must’ve been to keep up lying to me for 3 years. I can’t stop.
Never before practicing digging into myself without a real audience, could I have realized not just that pattern, but how it linked to my shopping. Spending on virtual, intangible goods was treating myself invisibly. Nobody could judge me for wanting or needing. Nobody could comment about it being a waste. Nobody could see me struggle once the bill came. Nobody could say ‘well maybe if you didn’t buy xyz…’ Same for buying lunch for people, gifts, so on. I could feel useful, show my very real care for the person in a way that made sense to them, and nobody would have to know the impact it had on me.
I was trained since I could comprehend that I didn’t matter unless I was useful or appeasing. Needing was annoying to others, even if the need was basic communication. Having an opinion was punishable. Family, friends, school, work… I learned this lesson over and over, until I began to even get engaged to people who happily played their part in these roles.
A well-off husband from a reputable family that lashes out when I do not play the perfect wife role.
A man-child still sleeping in his bunk bed with his Toy Story sheets that can’t let go of other women’s attention and secretly plotted to be my stay-at-home husband (that refused to even learn how to do laundry?).
A whole fabrication of a person, fooling everyone in my life that met him.
I minimize myself because it’s the only thing I’ve ever known to do to deserve space. The returns are diminishing, to say the very least. Years of therapy didn’t unlock that, somehow. It was absolutely useful in it’s own right and still is. I go regularly enough. Practicing naming my feelings to an LLM, using the tool intentionally, carefully, and with limited purpose has helped me, though.
I know there are plenty of people who do overuse it, to the point of self-destruction. My workplace has me fearing just how intentional that is. Most necessities to modern life come at a large cost in some detached way that we say “It’s not great, but what can we do?” The key will always be moderation, intention, and discretion. In my personal life, I like to think I balanced this well. A few months of practicing has likely saved me another decade of pain, wasted money, moving without intention in this world, and accepting being tolerated.
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