Plenty of stories, books, and movies imagine what the future will be like. Few get it right. (Unfortunately, we’re not yet living in a world filled with flying cars or hoverboards).
We are living in the future right now. AI – artificial intelligence – is everywhere, whether you like it or not. Perhaps there is a sci-fi story about machines summarizing our emails or internet searches, crafting responses to text messages, or suggesting recipes based on what we have in our fridges. You might be in the camp that thinks humans are being replaced by machines, or you might be in the process of setting up AI to do (nearly) everything for you.
We have a new tool available to us, one which is evolving rapidly. (There are new AI tools emerging daily). And we need to figure out how to use them, if at all. There is a difference between intelligence and wisdom, and the latter – at least for now – remains an endeavor for us humans.
But there’s a larger question for us to ponder beyond the implication of AI: how should we use any resource at our disposal? And the answer boils down to two options: forklifting and weightlifting.
Meet the Forklifter and the Weightlifter
The forklifter moves heavy objects quickly. He can carry far more than any human with a simple pull of a lever. The forklifter is freed from the literal burden he cannot or would rather not carry – saving his time, energy, and effort for things that only he can do.
The weightlifter also moves heavy objects. These objects are often lighter than those of the forklifter, and they may not necessarily need to be moved. It does, however, benefit the weightlifter to move them. The process of lifting, pulling, pushing, or carrying these loads builds his muscle, capacity, and resilience. It is not efficient, but it is difference making.
The podcast Hard Fork, which explores and makes sense of the rapidly changing world of tech, suggested this analogy to frame the ways in which AI might be used. And fundamentally, AI is a forklifting tool, not a weightlifting tool.
Imagine an AI forklift in your life. You’ve automated certain tasks which don’t really benefit from your time or attention. You’ve increased your capacity to research, brainstorm, and gather information. Simply put, you’re capable of more than you were before.
Now imagine an AI weightlift in your life. You’ve lost the ability to be creative and wrestle your way through new ideas. You’ve outsourced engaging people around you. Your spiritual, relational, and vocational muscles atrophy and waste away.
The danger with any tool is our tendency to use it beyond its intended purpose. And there’s a huge temptation for us to avoid heavy lifting. After all, it’s difficult and demanding and isn’t always fun. The opportunity for wisdom here is to discern where in our lives we are acting as forklifts, so that we can direct our energy towards the things which will build our muscles and not tear them apart.
What You’ll Set Up, You’ll Live Out
Every life, every community, every organization is a series of systems – some more healthy than others. The better the system, the healthier and more beneficial the habits, the relationships, the people.
As you build a better system for yourself and the people around you, balancing effort vs efficiency, here’s a quick exercise to spot your forklift/weightlift mistakes:
- Step One: Pick one area of your life. Make it specific.
- Step Two: Identify where you’re forklifting when you should be weightlifting (avoiding growth), and where you’re weightlifting when you should be forklifting (wasting effort).
- Step Three: Choose one small change you can implement this week to correct it.
Full disclosure: the Unravel blog is written by actual humans. That said, we do use AI in our organizational day-to-day to help us brainstorm and be efficient with our time, energy, and resources. In other words, we believe that writing to and engaging with our community is a life-building practice. And we find it helpful to automate certain tasks to help us focus on what matters most.
Like you, we don’t always get the balance right. And like you, we are committed to (re)organizing our habits and rhythms to better align with our purpose.
