Addiction and AI

As we move more and more into a universe where AI is present everywhere, it is starting to become more clear to me that AI, in its current form, is dangerous for the wellbeing of people.

I started drinking energy drinks when I was ~16 years old. It was a fun, socially acceptable buzz that I could easily get as a teen. In between classes I would pop down to my local corner store and grab a can, or head to a larger supermarket and pick up a crate for the week.

Eventually, I would end up hurting my sleep schedule, regularly not being able to sleep until 3-4am, missing classes, and feeling generally sluggish if I hadn't had some caffeine. I was too young and naive to realize what these drinks were doing to me, and this is not even counting what effects they would have on my physical health.

I spent 10+ years drinking energy drinks or sodas roughly once a day, and today luckily I no longer drink them. I would advise anyone who hasn't tried them to stay away, and those who are consuming them regularly to aim to ease off of them.

My gut feeling is that today we are in that honeymoon stage of the first hits of an addiction with AI. We are already seeing hints at the effects that AI has: there are people afflicted with "AI-induced" psychosis, who presented normally, but through AI have had internal mental issues realized and are suddenly facing crises. You just have to look at the behaviour of people who were outraged when OpenAI said that they were going to be retiring the 4o model to see an example of the kinds of mental issues that people are beginning to face when they have access to AI.

I myself have even felt those prangs, warning signs that something is not good for me when using AI. I can feel myself getting more lazy, relying more on AI to do things for me and just shut my brain off instead. I used GitHub Copilot autocomplete for about a year when it was first released freely some years ago, and ultimately decided that I didn't want to use it because it was actually degrading my programming ability over time. I would often find myself typing some short amount of characters, and then pausing and waiting for the AI to fill in the rest. It became such a pattern that even in scenarios where the AI wasn't present I would still exhibit the same behaviour.

My current use of AI is with caution. To me it feels like it is waiting to dig its claws in and drag me down. I cannot help but worry for those who have not the experience with an addiction already so that they cannot notice the feeling of slowly being boiled alive.

I would hope that we do not move towards a world where AIs continue to have such a detrimental effect on the mental health of people, but I fear this is where we are heading. Please, for your own good, keep your use of AIs measured.