my first thought is ask ai

every time i face a challenge, my first thought is usually not a thought.

it is:

ask ai.

if i manage to answer by myself, the next thought is:

check with ai.

an opinion, a decision, a practical problem, something i need to write. ai enters before i have formed my own answer, then waits at the other end to tell me whether the answer is good.

i chose this. i built a system that can read my projects, my notes, my goals, and a long history of conversations. it knows the patterns i keep repeating. asking it is much more valuable than opening a generic chatbot and giving it one paragraph of context.

lately i have started to wonder what happens when i ask ai before giving myself time to think. even when i do not open a model, the question can still appear: what would my ai do?

the decision was good

last thursday there was a small cultural gathering in cusco. i wanted to go, but a few hours before it started i was still at my computer arguing that events were a waste of time.

so, of course, i asked ai.

it knew i had been spending too much time behind the computer and finding good reasons to stay there.

then it said:

i suspect the "waste of time" argument is avoidance wearing a productivity costume.

annoying. also correct.

i went and felt good there. the ai got the main decision right: i needed to leave the computer and enter the room.

the conversation lasted about forty minutes. reading the log now, it is helpful and a little absurd. the question was whether to go. by the end, we were discussing almost every step required to walk out of my house.

the option i never created

before ai had all this context, i usually made difficult decisions in two ways.

if i had time, i wrote. journaling was slow, but following my own reasoning until something became clear usually left me feeling good about the decision.

if i did not have time, i acted from instinct. i often regretted that.

ai gave me a faster way. it remembers useful things and points out blind spots while there is still time to act. i often think the result is better than what i would choose quickly alone.

the problem is how easily its first answer replaces the ideas i never gave myself time to form.

once ai gives me options, i choose among them. maybe my options would be worse. maybe they would be stranger. most of the time i never find out. i already have a good answer, so i stop looking.

i notice this most when i try to write something original, especially a poem or a song. the blank page arrives, then the urge to ask for directions: give me ten angles. suggest the next line. tell me which version works.

if i refuse to ask, i become impatient. i want to leave the problem. i worry that i will spend all that effort and still end up with a worse answer than ai could give me immediately.

i do not know if i am getting worse at thinking alone. i have no baseline. what i can see is that waiting has become harder.

the thinking eventually starts.

that detail matters. my mind may not be empty. i may keep interrupting it before it has time to answer.

what i still want

maybe this is still a good trade. ai helps me make better decisions, even if i get worse at making them alone.

what i still want is the experience of an idea forming without ai. even if the final sentence is no better, there is relief in discovering that my mind can still produce it. the value is not being better. it is being there for the thought.

there is another part i do not understand. my ai learns from my history, but it also helps me choose what goes into that history. it is trying to understand a version of me that it helped create.

after i put the phone away

there is one place where my thoughts still arrive without being invited by a prompt.

at night, when i am trying to sleep, i put the phone away. there is no task to finish. after a while my mind starts moving through things that happened during the day. two topics that felt unrelated touch. something from several days ago returns. an idea begins to take a shape i did not ask anyone to generate.

sometimes i reach for the phone again to save a few words. sometimes i leave a note on the computer for the morning. the next day i may explore the idea with ai. i probably will.

but the first part happened in the dark, while i was doing nothing, after i had finally stopped asking.