The 10-minute AI lobotomy is here

OVER the last few months, I have been battling a ghost in my machine. This non-corporeal pest haunts me as I write e-mails, interjecting with suggested words or proposing that I rephrase various turns of phrase.

I have irritably clicked these interventions away, my internal diatribe growing progressively deranged: “Yah, I know your suggestion is more concise, but I don’t want to sound concise, I want to sound like me so that I can simulate bonhomie through this sorry proxy for human interaction. You would know this if you weren’t a piece of silicon, now please shut up.”

Apparently, I’ve been engaging in a petty and low-stakes version of a universal professional struggle – the temptation to outsource tasks to artificial intelligence and the devilish trade-offs that result.