Leverage AI, Don't be Led by It
The AI wave is taking over almost every facet of life. I am too hungover by AI. Let me explain you in this blog why AI is good as well as not good for us.
AI is the most powerful productivity booster we’ve seen in decades — and also the easiest trap for lazy thinking. It can help you write code faster, solve problems more creatively, and explore ideas in seconds. But if you’re not careful, it will quietly take over your thinking process — and you won’t even notice until your skills start to dull.
IT professionals:
Software engineers, team leads and tech managers are highly impacted by the AI shift. They are being told to use AI in every way possible to improve productivity. Big corporations are pushing tech employees to report how we can use AI in our day to day activities. They have now integrated copilots, agents for summarising daily meetings, writing emails, AI assistants and much more. All these inclusions are good for employees to boost productivity and provide faster results.
Employees who writes code are being told to use GitHub copilot or other agents to integrate in their development environments to improvise their coding and deliver features faster.
AI Impact on Companies:
In the latest report by McKinsey "AI in the workplace 2025" says while big tech corporations are increasing their growth by 66%, the Gen AI has not yet given significant return on investments for enterprises. Although the leaders have given positive responses for Gen AI capabilities and future growth in the next 3 years.
Still there are some sectors who have still not embraced AI capabilities and relying on their traditional methods as they say,
That's what been working for decades and we trust our process.
Proof: Over-reliance on AI:
There is a report by Time.com on "ChatGPT May Be Eroding Critical Thinking Skills, According to a New MIT Study". A few researchers at MIT did a study on some individuals by giving them essays to write. They divided them into three groups, where the first group will use AI to complete the essay, second group will only use their brain with no help and the third group will use google search to complete the essay.
And the results were astonishing. The first group delivered the essay faster than other groups by simply copying and taking ideas from chatgpt and the researchers said the essay were complete and accurate but lack the human touch and called "soulless" . The second group did an amazing job by writing essay with their own creativity, sharing their experiences and had human feel to it. The third group also did a good job by using Google search for just the parts they needed help with and summarise with their own thinking.
Now the resources were exchanged within the group and now the first group were told to rewrite the essay without the chatgpt, second group to use chatgpt and the third group to use only their brain. And the results were surprising. The first group hardly remembered the essay they had written earlier and struggled. The second group easily rewrote the essay with minimal efforts and the third group were still able to achieve great results by rewriting the essay with only their brain.
This results shows us that the brain group did well due to their own creativity and forcing their brains to think more and explore new ideas. While the chatgpt users lack motivation but had completed their tasks on time.
Risks on using AI:
Vibe coding is another aspect where individuals with little to no experience trying to build something just by relying on LLMs. Here's what Michael B. Paulson from "theprimetimeagen" told on "Why the hard skills matter". He says,
Young individuals rely so much on LLMs that their efficiency is dependent how good the LLMs are performing. They are more directly proportional to how many times the LLMs can get it right the first time. They are being told to not be "expert" at programming. They are being told to offload.
Benefits of using AI:
AI can be a great tool if use wisely and can help you in increasing work productivity and helping you clearing you doubts. But it is not a good tool if you simply use it to just anwer your questions or taking leverage by completing your tasks with it without reviewing it.
Every individual can get beforehand information about many topics which they don't know or need clarity. They can take leverage of AI tools to get information on various topics like medicines, education, sciences, travel, products, daily activites and much more.
As for myself, I use GitHub copilot in my workflow daily to only refactor my code and asking how an error can be solved in number of ways. I hardly turn on the code completions as you can sometime get overwhelmed by seeing completions without you telling the tool when to do things when only required. Of course if the problem is too hard, you can get the answers from these AI tools, but not before you trying to solve the problem first.
Yes, brainstorming is huge. For me, the tasks I tend to use A.I. the most for are ones where there is no clear right or wrong answer: It’s for brainstorming, it’s for extrapolating, it’s for helping me come up with 20 ideas for different questions and maybe one or two of them is directionally useful to me. What about you?
Suggestions:
- Use AI for get unstuck when debugging/prototyping, but always double check your answers.
- Use AI for explorations, not final decisions.
- Vibe coding isn't for anyone who just wants to built something and don't know what to do after, it's for someone who understands the problem and wants to quickly develop a solution which can be as a starting point for building something big.
At last, I can only say that AI is just a tool, not a master, let it work for you and not the other way around.
References:
Mckinsey Report - https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/superagency-in-the-workplace-empowering-people-to-unlock-ais-full-potential-at-work
Time.Com Read - https://time.com/7295195/ai-chatgpt-google-learning-school/
Youtube Video - https://youtube.com/shorts/qLVCEYaN59A?si=ZPC9QGvL3TD0HlXa