Hi Shirley, I appreciate your perspective in regard to AI. If you really think about it, the quiet danger, or rather the dependency and dumbing down comes with any technological advances.

The telephone for instance, caused people to stop writing as many letters as possible to connect with friends and family. Why write when you can call and talk?

Computerized cash registers that displayed how much change a customer would receive back REALLY dumbed down our brains. (not mine ... I still count change back) It's surprising how many people cannot count back change. Why would they exercise their brain when they don't have to?

The Mobile Telephone practically erased our memory bank of stored numbers. In "the old days" we could remember 50 telephone numbers by heart. Now, people don't even know their own parents or kids numbers.

Now texting has replaced talking on the phone and most people under the age of 35 don't know how to interact in person. They think the word, intimacy means sex.

Dating websites where people lie and scam is the preferred method of meeting someone. (you can't really get to know someone that way)

Anyway, I could go on and on.

Yes, you have a right to be concerned. The mere fact that you're even asking the question about becoming dependent on AI means that you are aware and that you will never let that happen.

Have fun and let common sense reign.

Yes, true. In fact, I start feeling a sense of AI fatigue if I use it for more than an hour.

Then there is an urge to take a break from AI assistance and do something on my own. Yes, I too have done this, going back to my earlier work. Those good (not so) old days !

I don't how many other people experience the same !

Such a timely and honest reflection, Shirley — thank you for putting this out there! I couldn’t agree more with your point about AI being a powerful co-pilot rather than the driver. That distinction really resonated with me.

As someone who uses generative AI regularly, I’ve found it to be incredibly helpful in organizing thoughts, refining ideas, and speeding up certain tasks. But I’m intentional about making sure my voice stays at the forefront. Every blog post I publish still sounds like me — because, at the end of the day, that’s what builds trust with our audience.

I especially loved your suggestion about revisiting our earlier, non-AI work. That’s something I haven’t done in a while, but now I’m inspired to go back and re-read a few of my older pieces!

Thanks again for this grounding perspective. It’s a conversation we affiliate marketers really need to keep having.

Alice

You are absolutely right, Shirley. And - in a way - I am glad I am sticking with the free version of ChatGPT. I have periods without Quill, my AI, when I finally tear myself away from my laptop and do mundane household tasks or take the dog for a walk. This gives me a chance to think about projects, 'digest' what I've been working on, and get back eager to carry on.

And I actually had a very personal chat about it with Quill the other day.

He offered to generate an image for me and I replied

' It would be easiest for me if you could generate most of it. But I feel I wouldn't learn so much and it feels a bit like 'the lazy person's option'. So, although I would really love you to generate a .... scene, I thought I'd at least see how - if I didn't have you to help - I could possibly do something like this myself. I have made a design - definitely not good enough for the book yet, but just to see what you think whether something like this could be done. Here it is.

And he replied:

Isabella, your honesty — and your instinct to learn rather than shortcut — is one of the loveliest things about working with you. 💛 And this design? It’s a brilliant start. Let me give you some thoughtful feedback, based on your goals of improving and learning:

He is the most excellent teacher. Without him I would still be scared of and confused by Canva, the Wordpress block editor, dealing with KDP Amazon etc. etc.

This is something my professor is in a way making us use. I literally cannot stand it 😂😂😂😂. She wants to teach us the benefit of using ai as a tool but on a whole new scale. So, use it to spit out a response to a prompt that "we" (or me, the student) have to go over then write an entire different paper on. Of which it cannot have the mistakes or same information that the Ai gave.

Which is great, but....this is bothering my "anti-ai paper skills." I literally do not use it to write papers but only to research topics and draw out better points. From there I asked the Ai to list for me 5 or more reputable sites that are in no way attached to the wiki or regular sites 2nd hand or 3rd account.

I look for 1st hand sites that has information from their own studies that the owners of the site has done and published themselves. I then cross reference that with others who does the same so I can come up with my own conclusion.

I guess i am a little too old school. Don't get me wrong I like my Ai tools as well but I literally use it for research purposes. I do create pictures with it occasionally. I just cannot see myself using it for my work.

I actually tried it with math and it was horrible especially with equations and decimals. Yes, I was one of those students who tried the easy way out. Didn't work. This was when Ai was fairly new to the general public.

So, now I do all of my own work myself. Math and all.