AI Didn't Make Us Lazy. It Just Gave Us Permission

Remember when you had to actually know things? Not everything. Just... enough to get by.

You'd write your own emails. Think of your own birthday messages. Struggle through a school assignment. Argue with your partner using words you came up with all by yourself.

Now

"ChatGPT, write my resignation."

"ChatGPT, write a heartfelt wedding speech."

"ChatGPT, explain quantum physics to me like I'm five."

At this rate, people will soon be asking AI to decide what takeaway they should order because choosing between pizza and Chinese is apparently an intellectual burden.

We've become a civilisation of prompt engineers. Not engineers. Prompt engineers. The hardest part of many people's day is typing, "Can you make this sound more professional?"

The worrying thing isn't that AI can write.

It's that so many people have stopped trying.

Every email now sounds as though it was written by the same cheerful corporate robot. "I hope this email finds you well." No, it doesn't.

It found me deleting another twenty-seven AI-written emails that all begin exactly the same way.

Everything is becoming suspiciously polished.

LinkedIn posts sound identical.

Company newsletters sound identical.

University assignments sound identical.

Even online arguments are becoming suspiciously articulate. Half the internet suddenly knows the phrase "it's important to recognise the nuanced implications..."

No, Karen.

Last week you couldn't spell "nuanced."

The funniest part is that people are using AI to save time... then spending the time they saved watching strangers' clean carpets on Facebook.

Humanity has finally invented a machine that can do our thinking. And we've rewarded ourselves by using the extra time to watch someone cleaning their carpet. And it never works! I've watched hundreds of 'how to clean your mattress like it came from a hotel!' It doesn't work.

What a species.

The irony is that AI isn't replacing human intelligence. It's replacing human effort. There's a difference.

AI can write a speech. It can't care about the person you're giving it to.

It can write a joke. It can't know whether your mates will laugh.

It can generate ideas. It can't live your life.

The best writing, the best music, the best conversations and the best friendships still come from people who put a little bit of themselves into what they create.

AI isn't the end of humanity.

But it might be the end of us bothering.

And that's not the machine's fault.

That's ours.