I was hesitant about AI. I actually like using my own brain

I often have a very clear thought that feels right. The problem is that it tends to live in my head as 17 interconnected threads, three examples, one memory from 2008, and a half-formed sentence.

When AI started becoming part of our everyday work, I was hesitant.

I kept hearing:

It saves time!

It will write your PRD!

It can generate a design from your PRD!

And I thought:

Wait. Am I supposed to give up the part of the job I actually enjoy?

I remember working as an interactive UX designer, putting my music on and making one wireframe after another.

I would collect every possible software function into a clickable prototype and somehow have an absolute blast doing it.

I love thinking.

I love complex problems.

I’ve even solved problems in my sleep. I’d wake up thinking:

Damn. That’s how we can do it. 😀

Later, as a Product Manager, I loved the discussions with engineering after the product design docs were ready.

The alignment.

The disagreements.

The new perspectives.

Expressing myself, not someone who wrote it for me.

Learning something I didn’t know.

I didn’t want to give any of that up.

So when people told me AI would make all of this faster, I wasn’t particularly excited.

Faster wasn’t necessarily better. I felt like something was being taken away from me: the interaction between human brains.

Instead of two people thinking together, we’d have two AIs talking to each other through documents.

Then I started thinking about my own business.

And suddenly I had a different problem.

I was on the farm.

There weren’t many people around to have a quick conversation with about the market, positioning, an idea I had just had, or whether something I was thinking about made any sense.

So, somewhat reluctantly, I asked AI.

I liked the answer.

There were facts.

Pointers.

Things I hadn’t considered.

So I asked another question.

Then another.

Eventually I said:

“This is what I want to share, but I don’t know how to say it.”

And that’s when I started discovering a completely different use for AI.

Not to think for me.

To help me translate my busy brain buzz into something readable.

And here’s the thing.

I often have a very clear thought.

You know… the 17 interconnected threads, three examples, one memory from 2008, and a half-formed sentence.

But I know what I mean!

Then I sit in front of the keyboard and suddenly… nothing.

I’d be frustrated because I knew there was something there.

Now I can bring the messy version.

The hints.

The angle.

What I think matters.

What annoys me.

What I disagree with.

I can be blunt.

Honest.

Open-minded.

Chaotic.

I can jump from one thought to another.

And instead of asking AI to give me something clever, I can ask it to help me figure out what the hell I was trying to say.

And sometimes it comes back with:

“There is actually a good article in here.”

😂

I think this has changed the way I see AI.

I still don’t want it to do my thinking for me.

I don’t want it deciding what matters.

I don’t want it replacing the messy conversations that create better ideas.

I don’t want to stop using my own brain.

I just finally have a tool that helps me get more of what is already in my brain out into the world.

And for someone who has spent years thinking, solving, arguing, designing, questioning and occasionally waking up at 3am with the answer…

That’s actually pretty useful.

Turns out, AI didn’t make me think less.

It made me write more.