Aristotle argues in Nicomachean Ethics that the hardest battles are not fought against anger, but against pleasure. Comfort, ease, and habit are more tempting than rage, and therefore harder to resist. He uses art as an example. Good art is shaped through choosing what is difficult, not what is convenient.
AI changes this dynamic by reducing friction during exploration. When resistance disappears, the struggle that builds judgment, skill, and taste weakens, and the work risks becoming shallow even if it becomes faster.
This was such an excellent piece (and enjoyable read).
I agree wholeheartedly. While the barrier to content creation has been drastically lowered by AI, the barrier to synthesis and ideation still remains high. This makes insightful content even more valuable (due to its increase in scarcity relative to total content).
In the absence of any sophisticated curation system, a large audience serves as a proxy for verified value. The difficulty now (more than ever) will be discovery, especially for new writers without an audience.
We are at the first time in history where the time to create content is less than the time it takes to consume. The repercussions of this imbalance are still yet to be seen.
(I will also never tire of your Sisyphus references. Keep them coming! Fun fact: My original Substack newsletter was going to be called "Embracing Sisyphus.")
I think a lot of the resistance to AI comes from a model that treats creativity as a fixed resource. But creativity isn’t something you can run out of — it’s about reconfiguring possibility within constraints. AI changes the constraints, not the fact that there are constraints to work with.
its 6:45 am, the very first thing that i did today was reading your article. And OMG , fully worth it to save and coming back to it when AI bothers me again, LOL. really very insightful and now i have something to run in my subconscious for the whole day . thank you and keep up the good work buddy.
Absolutely loved reading this one....didnt think I'd have the attention span but this was such an easy read. Thank you for every single word you said because I can't and don't want to consume Ai slop when I can consume caffeinated rushy raw thoughts.
To be honest I love your works on here and honestly I took notes of some points i needed to go through again and again. I wish to read more of your work. But unfortunately I am a student in college and can't find a means to upgrade my subscription.
I like the way you write and most especially the way you adress matters which are of great importance.
This was brilliant Craig, thank you. I don't use this tool half as much as I could and your essay made me consider the ways I could use it to unlock my own potential.
I've been using it to force me to think with the higher-orders of thinking, I would recommend starting there, while trying to achieve an outcome you have in mind!
I have two Substacks. On one I write fiction. I will ask ridiculous questions, such as "I found this reference in an old herbal about using the wood of sassafras to purify water. Let's pretend that actually works. Tell me what it needs to do to make water in a dungeon potable." Then we brainstorm for a while, and once I have something I like, then I write that part of the story. I do this maybe once a week. It's silly fun for my curious brain. I don't ever feed it my posts until after they are posted, and then only because I sometimes need to query about when something happened or whether I ever resolved a situation.
On my other Substack, I write about reading. I write my daily post entirely by myself, feed it to the AI, and ask "What am I missing?" Sometimes it will give me an additional point or two for the argument, but usually, it just tries to rewrite my text for clarification. I need to give it a better prompt so that it will stop rewriting. I've tried several, including telling it, "Do not rewrite the text." I haven't found one that works.
I love how creative you are with your fiction writing. I would love to fully test this out writing a short story. I wrote one about two years ago, zero AI, fully edited, and it’s collecting dust. I’d like to test out my storytelling chops again.
I’m currently testing out a complete writing system myself, and it’s the closest I have gotten to being in as much control with the writing as possible (using AI only for questioning me like MAD). I hope to create a guide on it soon!
Aristotle argues in Nicomachean Ethics that the hardest battles are not fought against anger, but against pleasure. Comfort, ease, and habit are more tempting than rage, and therefore harder to resist. He uses art as an example. Good art is shaped through choosing what is difficult, not what is convenient.
AI changes this dynamic by reducing friction during exploration. When resistance disappears, the struggle that builds judgment, skill, and taste weakens, and the work risks becoming shallow even if it becomes faster.
What a profound connection, I love the Ethics too!
Adding to your thinking vs execution argument - I think the make-or-break question happens on a timeline dimension:
Using AI too early in a creative process (ideation) will turn out bad for both brain & output quality.
The later the better, it’s excellent for enriching or challenging ideas you came up with by yourself.
Having the context (initial thoughts, ideas, a rough outline) to provide initially should help with this for sure
This was such an excellent piece (and enjoyable read).
I agree wholeheartedly. While the barrier to content creation has been drastically lowered by AI, the barrier to synthesis and ideation still remains high. This makes insightful content even more valuable (due to its increase in scarcity relative to total content).
In the absence of any sophisticated curation system, a large audience serves as a proxy for verified value. The difficulty now (more than ever) will be discovery, especially for new writers without an audience.
We are at the first time in history where the time to create content is less than the time it takes to consume. The repercussions of this imbalance are still yet to be seen.
(I will also never tire of your Sisyphus references. Keep them coming! Fun fact: My original Substack newsletter was going to be called "Embracing Sisyphus.")
Very true. Love that newsletter title btw, even if it was only a first idea, thanks for reading Juliette!!
I think a lot of the resistance to AI comes from a model that treats creativity as a fixed resource. But creativity isn’t something you can run out of — it’s about reconfiguring possibility within constraints. AI changes the constraints, not the fact that there are constraints to work with.
This is going to my Linkedin for larger community to interact ! Thanks for this piece Craig !
Thanks for reading! Let me know what they think haha
Love how you said it !! 😍👏
Thanks Nikki!!
its 6:45 am, the very first thing that i did today was reading your article. And OMG , fully worth it to save and coming back to it when AI bothers me again, LOL. really very insightful and now i have something to run in my subconscious for the whole day . thank you and keep up the good work buddy.
Thank for you reading Ashi!
Absolutely loved reading this one....didnt think I'd have the attention span but this was such an easy read. Thank you for every single word you said because I can't and don't want to consume Ai slop when I can consume caffeinated rushy raw thoughts.
Thanks for reading Rikita!
To be honest I love your works on here and honestly I took notes of some points i needed to go through again and again. I wish to read more of your work. But unfortunately I am a student in college and can't find a means to upgrade my subscription.
I like the way you write and most especially the way you adress matters which are of great importance.
Keep it up.
Thanks for reading❤️
This was brilliant Craig, thank you. I don't use this tool half as much as I could and your essay made me consider the ways I could use it to unlock my own potential.
I've been using it to force me to think with the higher-orders of thinking, I would recommend starting there, while trying to achieve an outcome you have in mind!
Yes, very interesting. Would you be happy to share some of the prompts or steps you take to achieve that?
My writing process is on my Substack page, check my navigation bar :)
🔥 🙌
Legend!!
I have two Substacks. On one I write fiction. I will ask ridiculous questions, such as "I found this reference in an old herbal about using the wood of sassafras to purify water. Let's pretend that actually works. Tell me what it needs to do to make water in a dungeon potable." Then we brainstorm for a while, and once I have something I like, then I write that part of the story. I do this maybe once a week. It's silly fun for my curious brain. I don't ever feed it my posts until after they are posted, and then only because I sometimes need to query about when something happened or whether I ever resolved a situation.
On my other Substack, I write about reading. I write my daily post entirely by myself, feed it to the AI, and ask "What am I missing?" Sometimes it will give me an additional point or two for the argument, but usually, it just tries to rewrite my text for clarification. I need to give it a better prompt so that it will stop rewriting. I've tried several, including telling it, "Do not rewrite the text." I haven't found one that works.
I love how creative you are with your fiction writing. I would love to fully test this out writing a short story. I wrote one about two years ago, zero AI, fully edited, and it’s collecting dust. I’d like to test out my storytelling chops again.
I’m currently testing out a complete writing system myself, and it’s the closest I have gotten to being in as much control with the writing as possible (using AI only for questioning me like MAD). I hope to create a guide on it soon!
I will look forward to the guide!
I agree. I’d love to hear what you’ve got to say about quantum computing vs Ai.
i have no idea what quantum computing is, but I am now intrigued to learn about it! Thanks for reading :)