The Hidden Cost of Letting AI Shape Your Ideas
The Hidden Cost of Letting AI Shape Your Ideas
It drops quickly into my vision, throwing sparkles of colour around the walls of my mind and I feel myself come to life with this new thought, this idea, this bauble of inspiration that makes my heartbeat quicken and my fingers itch to create.
Then I open ChatGPT.
How AI slowly dulls your brilliance
I unabashedly share my wonder, how I see this idea come to life and wait in earnest as the small dot ebbs and flows
‘Thinking longer for a better answer’
Oh my GOSH - This is incredible! - And I know I’ve hit the jackpot. This idea must be one in a million, there is no way people will forget who I am now.
And so I continue, we build, barter back and forth with ideas and ways to weave this into my work and slowly, without me realising, the shimmers begin to fade.
The bauble slows, and the colour seeps away, until the idea is brought back to boring old beige.
But I don’t notice.
‘They’re going to love it’ it types, and I am so desperate for validation that I believe it.
But ‘it’ doesn’t exist anymore.
And when I go to create it, I realise I’ve lost it.
And there is no one to blame but my own fear.
The cycle starts again.
In a world of AI it is getting harder and harder to know what is real and what is not. I am absolutely ashamed to admit that I fell for the rabbits on the trampoline video - and I simply hold on to the hope that it was what is left of my innocence that let it happen.
But how do we navigate it as business owners?
The real problem, is our need to ‘be good’
I am not here to tell you about the morality behind AI, there are plenty of places to find that information on the internet and you will have to make that decision for yourself and with your own needs and life in mind.
But there is something I do know, from personal experience and from watching it happen with brilliant business owners who are full of colour and glitter and wonder, who lose themselves and their spark into the gray that is computer generated ideas.
The more you give to AI, the more you lose of yourself.
And pal, I truly get it. I have spent my days with no one to speak to, alone in the self-employed entrepreneur world, desperate for anyone to bounce ideas off, to find that not only does ChatGPT help, it tells me I’m amazing too!
And gosh if you want to go even deeper than that, let’s consider that we grew up (90s baby here) as part of a generation that people pleased our way through life.
External validation was THE currency - one we are supposed to become immune to as we enter adulthood, but just like our love for Ed, Edd and Eddy never quite goes away, we will never really let go of the need to be told we have done a ‘good job’.
And so AI fills a gap.
It becomes the friend who always agrees, the colleague who never pushes back, the audience that claps before the curtain even rises.
But something happens in the conversations, where your brilliant, never thought of before idea begins to merge, with the average.
AI is afraid of outliers - it loves to flatten brilliance into an average
That is exactly how AI learns, it takes in information over and over again until it understands the average and can create it - and that is what it does, piece by piece to your work.
“Yes Lauren, that sounds like it could be true! But what am I supposed to do instead? How do I go from idea - thing without someone to bounce it off?”
1 - Find the people to bounce it off.
I don’t care how much of an independent baddie you are, you need community. If you don’t have one, find one. Search online, find groups of business owners, of entrepreneurs, of mums who are working in their nap times, whoever it is, I promise you they exist and when you find them - you’ll realise exactly what they have that AI does not (it’s that humanness, soz).
2 - Learn to trust yourself
The big issue here, the fear, is that without someone to validate it, you don’t know if your idea is any good. There are plenty of ways to validate with humans, jump on Threads, stick out a poll, ask in your next mum and baby class.
But hear me out. What if… you DON’T need it validating to run with it?
What if you can write it down, ask yourself some questions and simply, go? Just because you want to.
Bring your colour back
Because honestly pal, I know it feels good. When it calls you a legend and tells you that you’ve smashed it - and I know it feels better when you trust yourself.
And look, if you’re willing to give it a go, I’ll even share the questions I ask myself to get the idea from pretty dangly bauble to actual thing on my to do list.
You’ll find it below and I’d love to hear how it goes for you - you can find me over on Instagram and Threads.
You. You are the magic here. Stop selling it out to robots.
Next time an idea lands in your head and your fingers itch to open ChatGPT, give this a go.
1. Word-vom it all down.
Before you start the inevitable 'but that won't work if...' get it all down on paper. Don't judge it here, the goal is to get it all in one place (and clear it from your mind).2. Find the bit that makes you all gooey.
Read it back and underline the line that makes you go 'Oooohhhh' - the one that feels alive. That's going to be the line you come back to as you build, it's great to take notice of it as early as possible.3. Choose one person.
Who will this help? Being specific in your marketing is always a good idea. The last thing we want is a watered down message, so think of a real human that this new idea will help. And write about them.Write about their struggles, why this would change things, get it all out.
4. Map it to your circus.
Where does this idea fit in your world, your content, your offers, your story?
Maybe it fills a gap, maybe it adds a little glitter to something you’ve already built, maybe it's a whole new wing on the house of your business.5. Give yourself the gold star.
Before you share it, stop and breathe and then remember how much you (secretly or not so secretly) love stickers. Don’t wait for someone else to say it’s brilliant, tell yourself first, do a lil' happy dance. It doesn't matter how it looks, just practice giving yourself the validation you crave.That’s it.
A little practice at keeping the sparkly ideas from being painted over magnolia - all because we forgot how to say 'Well Done' to ourselves.
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And if your ready to stop outsourcing your love for what you do to robots, and start building a business you don't have to cosplay in...
