Ruth is not interested in optimization in the tech-bro sense, but she is interested in growth. She knows she feels better when she has a sense that she is quietly improving her cognitive sharpness and emotional resilience.
Over her life and career, she has done this through approaching the everyday challenges of life responsibly and conscientiously. Now, somewhat reluctantly, she has been wondering if AI has something to offer her in improving her thinking and skills.
On one hand, she has some ethical objections to AI and hates the sense of pressure to use it for fear of getting left behind. On the other, she has some curiosity about whether it has something positive to offer her.
This article is for someone like Ruth who is curious but hesitant about AI, who values a sense of being strong and capable, and who likes to approach personal growth gently and creatively rather than from a place of urgency or self-criticism.
How to Use AI to Make Your Own Thinking Sharper
People mostly think about using AI for cognitive off-loading of thinking rigor and responsibility. But that doesn’t have to be how you use it. It can also be a tool for cognitively and emotionally challenging yourself.
1. Use AI to Gain Awareness of Ways You Don’t Naturally Think
We all have thinking strengths, which can become narrower and more specialized over time. We tend to take the same approach to problem-solving, no matter what the problem. We tend to use the same tools, resources, and mental shortcuts.
When our thinking strengths (like care and caution) are rewarded with success, or we feel a sense they’re protecting us from harm, we double down on those.
Exploring topics and tasks via AI can help you see approaches and tools you don’t even think of. This surfacing of what we don’t know we don’t know (including about our ways of operating and alternative tools or perspectives we never would have thought of) is one of the most valuable uses of AI for ordinary people.
2. Use AI to Become More Open to Taking Advice
Most people are more receptive to advice they ask for and have ample time and space to process than unsolicited advice. I’ve found that AI can help you peacefully explore areas where you have some psychological resistance, avoidance, or fear. For example, you might talk to it about your hesitation about making a will (of course, all the usual caveats apply about not relying on it being right).
The fact that many AI programs save each conversation separately allows you to pick up a topic weeks or months later, when you have the mental space to explore it, or it reaches the top of your priority list (for example, finances and investing topics). This can allow you to get aspects of your life in order at your own pace, and give you all the time and space you need to mull over various options.
3. Use AI to Find Examples of Thinking That Inspire You
I spend a lot of time asking AI to find examples of creative thinking, like people who see workarounds to barriers when most other people would just see the barrier.
My favorite ways to do this are by asking AI to analyze YouTube videos (e.g., long-form interviews) or, for example, dump the data from years of a question-and-answer forum into AI, and then query it.
To identify creative thinking in others, I ask a lot of questions that contain terms like creative, under-the-radar, unusual, long-tail strengths, assumptions, barriers, resilience, tools, and resources.
Know When AI Is Most Likely to Give You Sophisticated Ideas
When using AI for these purposes, consider what data it has been trained on. It’s probably going to be much better at helping you learn new approaches related to topics like tech and finance that are more objective and that have highly structured documentation than emotional topics, where most of its training data will tend to be broader concepts you’ve probably heard a lot about before already.
Let Your Own Values Guide Your Growth
You don’t need to adopt the values of AI companies to benefit from their tools. You can not care about efficiency or productivity, but still use the tools to support your own values and priorities.
