Using AI for Human Development: Outsourcing the Journey Instead of the Drudgery After having spent weeks listening to podcasts, reading books, and studying the arguments coming out of Silicon Valley I keep feeling like much of the AI conversation is missing something fundamental. Many of the loudest voices are either framing the problem backwards or barely discussing the possibility that AI could actually be deeply humanizing. The media especially likes to frame the threat that machines will make humans unnecessary. I increasingly think the larger societal risk is that humans will voluntarily surrender the parts of life that actually develop them, because automating white-collar work does not inherently diminish human dignity or the soul. In many cases, it actually can be restorative in its nature — with conditions. Why? A shocking amount of modern knowledge work is really just “cognitive ditch-digging”. I keep coming back to a distinction that feels increasingly important to discuss in the AI era and the questions we should be asking of which to serve as the axiomatic filter in how we use it: - Is the task at hand required primarily for the result? - Is the task at hand important because the doing itself matters? Two examples to drive this home: #1 If you need a drainage ditch dug you just want the ditch. If a backhoe can do it in five minutes instead of eight hours, you will happily use the machine. The labor itself was never the point. #2 Instead of traveling to Europe, you don’t want someone to implant fake memories of Paris into your brain while you stay home. The experience is the point - the wandering, getting lost, struggling through unfamiliar streets, tasting food, having conversations, etc. This distinction explains almost the entire AI debate for me. The danger is not automating drudgery, it is accidentally outsourcing formation. Formatting spreadsheets, writing repetitive corporate emails, producing decks nobody reads…this is not evidence of intelligence as they were never deeply human to begin with. They are administrative burdens executed on computers because better tools did not yet exist. They aren’t created to make us feel more alive. That comes from mentorship, wisdom, conviction, courage, raising children, pursuing truth, or creating beauty. Those are not “ditch-digging” activities. Those are journeys. And journeys shape the soul precisely because they cannot be shortcut without losing something essential in the process. If you use AI to summarize a 600-page regulatory document, you are removing drudgery. If you use AI to avoid wrestling deeply with hard ideas, avoid developing conviction, avoid learning how to think, avoid writing, avoid moral struggle, or avoid the pain required for wisdom, then you are essentially asking for the memories of Paris without ever taking the trip. You get the output, but lose the formation. Human flourishing was never about maximizing friction everywhere, much of it today is pointless. Continued ⬇️⬇️⬇️

I’ve always been a builder, an executor, and a creator. I get far more energy from actually doing the work than from philosophizing about it. But as this AI “supersonic tsunami” continues to accelerate, I’ve found myself increasingly uneasy with the messaging coming out of Silicon Valley and the current batch of thought leaders. The Elon Musk, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, Peter Thiel, and Peter Diamandis’ of the world are undeniably brilliant. They get asked constantly about AI and its role in society. But the answers are incomplete as they almost always frame the future through the lens of efficiency, optimization, productivity, and economic output — an Industrial Revolution mindset where the highest good is reducing friction and maximizing capability. It can be intellectually easy—even frictionless—to focus on the similarities instead of differences as AI is uniquely designed to imitate us. I want to hear more discussion about how to cultivate wisdom in a world where superintelligence and knowledge is free, or if AI is a tool for the expert and crutch for the learner how do we ensure our kids don’t shortcut the process and become men/women of substance? I️ am looking for fresh perspectives that practically embrace AI and its benefits, yet understand matters of the soul. If you have podcasts, books, research, or links to this subject I️ would love to hear recs. Not doomerism or techno-optimism, but something new.