Life pain is easing so much since I found you in february and start to analyse my own "cognitive fraility" as you said. AI helps me to work through so many layers, establish rational connections that were vague feelings of overwhelm and so on. It was probably life-saving.
You know what came to mind? Secretaries who were dictated to, and whose job it was to type up reports.
What happened here - at what point did we decide to get rid of that & that they were no longer needed?
I know it’s not quite the same, but imagine if this was still a thing - how easy it would be to repurpose that role into what Charlotte did for you.
I would almost bet that there were people like you who never realised they had this problem because they had competent secretaries who de facto did what Charlotte did - stopped at “good enough” and omitted what they knew the recipient wouldn’t need.
Anyway. Thanks, as always, for a window into your mind, and I’m so glad you realised what made this so hard for you.
I love that analogy! I never had a secretary, and the most of what I know about them is from TV. But you're right, they often handled the summarization, translation, routine tasks, AND the relational for the person they worked with.
Secretaries are reserved nowadays more for the executive C-suite, but I'd definitely give up a hefty chunk of my salary to pay for one. Especially if they managed my executive function, work relationships, and client emails. I'm gonna need a drink cart in my office too.
This must be a reason why I loved "Mad Men" so much!
Awesome piece. The blank page isn't difficult because the thoughts aren't there. It's difficult because the thoughts need a surface to push against... A question, a draft, a conversation partner. AI does the same thing on demand. The brain hasn't changed. The environment around it finally did. This is the cleanest explanation I've read of why a tool that "just talks back" makes such an outsized difference.
Mostly external, like bulletin boards and post-its. But what I really want to spend some time reflecting on is the revelatory (to me) idea that a person can be a surface - which begs the question, what are other legible surfaces for me? In some ways I’m thinking of what happened with your wife it as a type of translation.
I like your approach to reflection. Call me next time you're writing a status report and we'll try it out.
I don't necessarily see the person as a surface though. They're more of a mirror (flat/concave/convex) that can reflect a surface back to you that can interface more appropriately with a different human's cognitive architecture.
Exactly! My thinking is firing on all cylinders, and the thoughts are there. They're just branching, non-linear, divergent, or incomplete. The surface is the forcing function to organize all of that. And AI is the reflector/tool that helps to do that for my brain. Thanks Alexandra!
Thanks for sharing that with me. I'm with you. AI has held my hand as I've gone down some uncomfortable rabbit holes, and then helped me craft a map for myself to climb back out.
I'd love to see how you've used it or hear more about its impact on your life. Especially as I help others who are learning the tool for the same application. Let me know if you ever want to jump on a Zoom session.
Life pain is easing so much since I found you in february and start to analyse my own "cognitive fraility" as you said. AI helps me to work through so many layers, establish rational connections that were vague feelings of overwhelm and so on. It was probably life-saving.
You know what came to mind? Secretaries who were dictated to, and whose job it was to type up reports.
What happened here - at what point did we decide to get rid of that & that they were no longer needed?
I know it’s not quite the same, but imagine if this was still a thing - how easy it would be to repurpose that role into what Charlotte did for you.
I would almost bet that there were people like you who never realised they had this problem because they had competent secretaries who de facto did what Charlotte did - stopped at “good enough” and omitted what they knew the recipient wouldn’t need.
Anyway. Thanks, as always, for a window into your mind, and I’m so glad you realised what made this so hard for you.
I love that analogy! I never had a secretary, and the most of what I know about them is from TV. But you're right, they often handled the summarization, translation, routine tasks, AND the relational for the person they worked with.
Secretaries are reserved nowadays more for the executive C-suite, but I'd definitely give up a hefty chunk of my salary to pay for one. Especially if they managed my executive function, work relationships, and client emails. I'm gonna need a drink cart in my office too.
This must be a reason why I loved "Mad Men" so much!
Awesome piece. The blank page isn't difficult because the thoughts aren't there. It's difficult because the thoughts need a surface to push against... A question, a draft, a conversation partner. AI does the same thing on demand. The brain hasn't changed. The environment around it finally did. This is the cleanest explanation I've read of why a tool that "just talks back" makes such an outsized difference.
This was amazing and extraordinarily relatable. I need to let it marinate and come back.
Mostly external, like bulletin boards and post-its. But what I really want to spend some time reflecting on is the revelatory (to me) idea that a person can be a surface - which begs the question, what are other legible surfaces for me? In some ways I’m thinking of what happened with your wife it as a type of translation.
I like your approach to reflection. Call me next time you're writing a status report and we'll try it out.
I don't necessarily see the person as a surface though. They're more of a mirror (flat/concave/convex) that can reflect a surface back to you that can interface more appropriately with a different human's cognitive architecture.
Yeah, I forgot those instructions for the readers. "Must marinate for 2-3 days." 😊
I'm happy you could relate. Do you have a favorite surface that works for you? Post-Its? Or did you settle into Evernote, OneNote, Notion, etc.?
Exactly! My thinking is firing on all cylinders, and the thoughts are there. They're just branching, non-linear, divergent, or incomplete. The surface is the forcing function to organize all of that. And AI is the reflector/tool that helps to do that for my brain. Thanks Alexandra!
Thanks for sharing that with me. I'm with you. AI has held my hand as I've gone down some uncomfortable rabbit holes, and then helped me craft a map for myself to climb back out.
I'd love to see how you've used it or hear more about its impact on your life. Especially as I help others who are learning the tool for the same application. Let me know if you ever want to jump on a Zoom session.