A lot of AI products, when you strip away the hype, are happiness machines. Feed them your mood and they give you something back, such as a great playlist, a useful summary, an answer, a story, some pretty good code. We can debate the quality of the output, but we all know the response is fast. You receive, the product works, and it feels good. Dopamine, delivered.
This lasts for about two seconds, and then you want more.
It doesn’t take much investigation to realize this isn’t a durable kind of happiness. Many contemplative traditions, from Stoicism to mindfulness, have long warned about the shelf life of received pleasures. The kind of happiness that you receive tends not to stick. But the kind you build — that you actively create — tends to compound. It’s what keeps people coming back to a yoga mat or a meditation cushion, week after week, even when they have a Netflix account.
I’m not saying AI tools can’t help people do real things. My job building websites pretty much requires that I use them. Lullabot now gives us an “AI budget,” and my work with my current client, the City of Boston, involves thinking carefully about where AI fits and where it doesn’t.
But the more I pay attention, the more I notice that many of the most-hyped AI products are optimized for the receiving kind of happiness. They’re very good slot machines.
I felt this clearly in my yoga class on Wednesday. After a day of receiving — likes, mentions, kudos — I offered a reflection on these different kinds of happiness as a theme for class. I reminded everyone that before they arrived, they had already made a series of choices that led to doing: becoming members, signing up, getting to the building, finding the room. And now that they were here, they could keep doing something. I invited them to pay attention while doing whatever they chose to do and notice the results. Or not. That was their choice too.
People don’t come to my yoga classes to be entertained. At least I hope not. What was clear to me, practicing with other people, was that I could feel the difference between receiving and doing, and that doing felt so much better.
Whatever technology choices you’re making right now, it might be worth asking: what do your tools give you? And is that actually what you want? Do you notice the difference between receiving and doing?
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