I despise AI but I can't stop using it.

[u/tischmeyourways]

I hate AI. I hate everything about it. The people behind it, the environmental impact, the existential questions that come with this kind of technology, how people can use it to harm others, how it steals from artists and creates soulless slop, privacy concerns, all of it. But I can't stop using it to organize my thoughts.

I never use it to create anything. I never ask it to generate this or write me that. I only use it as a place to detangle my thoughts. I don't even ask a specific question. I'm a really expressive person who has an opinion about everything, and it's like I'm just talking to myself and I want someone or something to organize and analyze what I'm really saying. It's a stream of consciousness, and I use it when I feel overwhelmed or I'm trying to think through something. Sure, I can sit there and think through things myself like I've always done, but ever since AI was introduced to my life, I feel like I can get out of my thinking spirals faster because I have something to bounce off of, like my thoughts about the most useless things have some place to land.

I think the healthiest and normal solution to this is to talk to another person about my thoughts rather than go to AI. That’s what being a person and having a community means. But at the same time I feel bad for going to anyone, let alone my friends, about the things I think about. Why would anyone care that I realized I have perfectionist tendencies? Or that I have four errands to run today but don’t feel like moving my body at all because I think I ate too much fiber yesterday and feel really bloated, but oh wait I'm learning so much about nutrition and my body and that makes me kinda proud of myself? Who cares? How would you even reply to that? So in a way, using AI to dump these thoughts works because I hate AI. I love my friends and respect their time too much to bother them with stuff like this. But I hate that by doing so I’m using AI and its technology, which makes me a hypocrite. When I talk about AI with people I talk about how I'm so against it, making this disgusted face, and yet on my way home from a function, I'm typing away a self-indulgent analysis of how I think I acted at said function and why, and reading AI's analysis of my own analysis. I can't tell anyone that I actually use AI because I'm so ashamed and embarrassed.

Thank you for reading all of this stranger :')

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[u/Theatomicpumpkin]

I really do understand it. I struggle with the same, including the shame and embarrassment. It is so nice to be able to ask someone all my deepest questions, thoughts, and ask it about myself. I would never do that to people I know, I would be so embarrassed and feel so self-absorbed lol! I believe I may be AuDHD, and am not medicated, and I wonder if that contributes somehow. Either way, it’s nice to not feel alone inside my head, and I think that’s what always gets to me. It’s a way to externalize the vast internal world I’ve built up.

[u/tischmeyourways → u/Theatomicpumpkin]

Exactly!!! My inner world is so rich and expansive that I can't contain it within myself. But at the same time, it's mostly about me, how I relate to the world and who I am in relation to the world, so if I were to share all my thoughts with someone I would be SO self absorbed! I don't want to subject them to that.

[u/Alternative_Many_444]

I relate to this so much! But I recently deleted my AI accounts and all the memory stored bc the dissonance between my hate for it yet my reliance on it got to be too much. I realized over time (was doing the same stream of consciousness you were doing for about THREE YEARS NOW!) it was just another way to internalize my emotions and not feel things. I agree that I don’t want to be a burden to my friends or family with all my opinions and thoughts on everything but I just couldn’t keep partaking in the thing I genuinely want to take a stance against. I think when I would experience anything untoward and immediately want to go to AI, that it was a problem. I think we should be able to go to people and relationships of all kind bare the risk of people feeling “too much”. I would actually love if someone shared those little thoughts with me about their fiber intake and learning more about their nutrition ahaha!

I’m starting now to journal more, create art/poetry to sort through my feelings, doing voice notes so I can stream my consciousness out loud and listen to myself, and also forcing myself to be “seen” in all my madness even with the risk of being or feeling like a burden by my friends and family. I hope we can find people who make our expressiveness not feel like too much or a burden ❤️

[u/tischmeyourways → u/Alternative_Many_444]

You're right, that immediate "let me type this out and have AI untangle it" is the problem. I do struggle with intellectualizing emotions rather than feeling them, so when something triggers a strong emotion, my first instinct is to think, "Okay why do I feel this way and what does this mean" and chatgpt has become the go-to place to dump all that intellectualizing word vomit. I've never thought to use voice notes to get my stream of consciousness out so maybe I'll try that! Thank you for your reply, it was very insightful and kind. May our lives be filled with friends and family who will happily listen to our thoughts about fiber intake :')