Outsourcing My Brain

The 5 Niche, Quirky, and Slightly Embarrassing Ways I Use AI

Look, I’m just as bewildered as you are as to why this custom AI that is specifically trained to draw my face only decided that half of my face would have facial hair. I’m just grateful I got the thing working in the first place.

I've been thinking about how Large Language Models such as ChatGPT or Claude have snuck into my life in ways I didn't anticipate. Not the obvious stuff like "help me write this email to sound less passive-aggressive" — though I do that too — but the weird, specific use cases that probably make me sound like I'm one step away from letting ChatGPT file my taxes.

Which, now that I think about it... wait, no. Let's not give me ideas.

It started innocently enough — a little help with a coding problem here, a quick summary of an article there. But before I knew it, I'd developed a whole ecosystem of AI-assisted workflows that would make my tech-skeptic friends stage an intervention if they knew. (Mom, if you're reading this, I promise I'm still capable of forming my o…