In the past I'd often reach a point like an unexpected error or looking at some docs would act like a "speed bump" and let me breath, and typically from there I'd acknowledge how tired I am, and stop for the moment.
With AI those speed bumps still exist, but there's sometimes just a bit of extra momentum that keeps me from slowing down enough to have that moment of reflection on how exhausted I am.
And the AI doesn't even have to be right for that to happen: sometimes just reading a suggestion that's specific to the current situation can trigger your own train of thought that's hard to reign back in.
You can go to the Walmart outside town on foot. And carry your stuff back. But it is much faster - and less exhaustive - to use the car. Which means you can spend more quality time on things you enjoy.
One could also do the drive (use AI) and then get some fresh air after (personal projects, code golf, solving interesting problems), but I don’t thing everyone has the willpower for that or the desire to consider that.
( Of course dear reader, YOU won't randomly kill people because you're a "good driver". )
And it will be the same thing with AI. You want to ask it a question that you can verify the answer to, and then you actually verify it? No problem. But then you have corporations using it for "content moderation" and end up shadow banning actual human beings when it gets it wrong, and then those people commit suicide because they think no one cares about them when it's really that the AI wrongly pegs them as a bot and then heartlessly isolates them from every other living person.
Exercise is good.
Being outside is good.
New experiences happen when you're on foot.
You see more things on foot.
Etc etc. We make our lives way too efficient and we atrophy basic skills. There are benefits to doing things manually. Hustle culture is quite bad for us.
Going by foot or bicycle is so healthy for us for a myriad of reasons.
Economies of scale do mean you can get a fluffy blanket imported from China at $5, less than the cost of a coffee at Starbucks, but for food necessities Walmart isn’t even that cheap or abundant compared to other chains.
When 75% of the west is overweight or obese, and when the leading causes of death are quite literally sloth and gluttony I think I'd take my chances... We're drown in insane quantity of low quality food and gadgets
And you pay small local stores with higher prices - which leads to more people, even in such small-towns with local butchers and bakers to get into their ride and go to the Lidl or Aldi on the outskirts.
Much like companies will realise LLM-using devs are more efficient by some random metric (do I hear: Story points and feature counts?), and will require LLM use from their employees.
The car analogy has that covered already. When Guttenberg was printing bibles, those things sold like warm bread rolls - these days, printing books is barely profitable. The trick with new disruptive tech always is to be an early adopter - not the long tail.