AI was supposed to extend our competencies, but it's becoming a prosthetic for intellectual zombies. A sharp diagnosis of the plague of 'fairy-tale writers' and superficiality in business.
Well, I guess I have to agree that when it comes to some forms of intelligence, “artificial” is the perfect adjective. I use AI tools daily, I also deal with serious companies that utilize AI and automation. I have many friends who do incredible things with AI on the largest IT and e-commerce projects… in summary, a lot is happening, but on the other hand, I see that an increasingly common symptom of corporate disease is hiring people whose brains have been devoured by AI. AI is becoming not an extension of competence, but a prosthetic that allows people to pretend they are someone they never were and probably never will be - like a business analyst, a real IT professional, or perhaps a fantasy writer.
Let me illustrate this for you. For example, if you’re analyzing competition, it means you have extensive knowledge about your market segments, you have market knowledge, but most importantly, certain competencies that go beyond those of a salesperson. The mix of competencies and knowledge allows you to do intellectual work that produces concrete, measurable output without the AI prosthetic - maybe not in an hour or a day, but you can do it. To paint the picture further: you do research, you can analyze the strengths and weaknesses of similar companies, profile the people who work there, review their offerings and projects, compare price lists, extract pricing information, and even make a few phone calls to gather additional information. You read reports, understand them, and finally compile this into sensible knowledge - maybe a few-page report for a decision-maker. When you think about it all, sometimes some of these activities require enormous knowledge, not to mention experience, which determines effectiveness.
However, I see increasingly often that AI is a mask that allows people to pretend to be someone they’re not, and I’m not writing about someone helping themselves, but about someone using things they don’t understand. Someone uses a mask to become someone they are not and never would be without that very mask. Because it’s one thing when an athlete takes steroids and runs 0.5 seconds faster, or has some more advanced shoes. Here we’re talking about a situation where someone can’t run properly because they’re sitting on the couch in their living room eating chips and think they’re running. Simply put.
I have exactly such a case where there’s contact with people who got, for example, a director position. Generally, such a person should have competencies, but not in prompting. To be clear: prompting can obviously speed up tasks, AI/LLM can enable brainstorming or some rebranding on steroids, but unfortunately I see symptoms of brainrot, and even a zombie direction… Honestly, the word “prompting” in my head, through all this marketing by fairy-tale writers and posers hanging around this platform, where they can’t (probably as unemployed people) miss the train labeled “AI-hype,” takes on such a disgusting character that it’s hard for me to use it.
And that look. You’ve seen it more than once. When you dig deeper into a topic and see those mindless eyes on the other side. A person who would like to throw what you’re saying into AI so it can explain it to them. Is this what the future is supposed to look like? That’s why if any of you have read about the atrophy of critical thinking, yes, I fully agree - I observe this. However, I hope that this outbreak of fairy-tale writers is just a flash and they will disappear in this revolution, consumed and ground up, because nothing distinguishes them from the dark mass. I still believe that the time of deep competencies is coming, but we need to wait a bit longer until the fairy-tale writing waste flows away and we no longer have to flagellate ourselves with contacts with fairy-tale writers. The times will pass when digging into a topic exposes the poverty behind which hides nothing more than mindless prompting. Or maybe I’m an idealist after all, and are we facing the time of digital cannibalism? The age of mindlessness?
Hacks, have mercy, die off, or crawl back into the pit you emerged from into the light of day.
