Hi Reader,

For a long time, I was an unequivocal AI optimist.

I saw the possibilities of AI before I saw the problems - and built much of my work around helping other people use AI too.

But recently, I noticed something I did not want to admit: I was becoming less willing to think without it.

AI had removed so much friction from my work. But friction is not always inefficiency. Sometimes, it is where the thinking happens.

Then I watched The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist and found a word for the complicated place I now occupy.

An apocaloptimist believes in AI’s profound potential while refusing to look away from its risks.

It also rejects the idea that we must choose between believing AI will save us and fearing it will destroy us.

Both extremes suggest the future has already been decided.

Apocaloptimism gives us permission to believe that our choices still matter, and to exercise human agency over what we automate, what we delegate and which parts of ourselves we protect.

In my latest Women in the Loop letter, I explore cognitive offloading, the Slow AI movement and what constant access to an artificial thinking partner might be costing us.

I would love to know whether your own relationship with AI has become more complicated too.

Abha