It's tempting to just let tools think for you, but you still need to be able to think for yourself and stay sharp.
Think First, AI Second
Three principles for keeping your cognitive edge while leveraging AI's capabilities
Don't Get Distracted
I’m going to tell you about how I took a job building software to kill people. But don’t get distracted by that; I didn’t know at the time.
I'm becoming AI-blind - Rafal Cymerys
Recently I've been catching myself having these little moments at work, when I'm trying to read a document someone has sent me and my brain somehow refuses to analyze it. It feels like I'm reading it, but I'm unable to focus on its content. I sat down to analyze these situations and realized they all have a common denominator: the documents all show a strong trace to AI. My brain learned to quickly spot signs of AI-generated content, at least the low effort one, and it now ignores it and moves on without thinking much about it.
Reducing the cognitive load of AI changes
When reviewing large amounts of AI-generated code, I often find that the LLM chooses terms for abstractions that do not always map to my own choices. For instance, what it may call a MutationIntent might personally be more natural to me as an EditRequest. Because the LLM's choice of words is not my ideal choice, I have to do a mental lookup of what it means every time I see it, which adds cognitive load.
People Who Can't Visualize Anything Are Challenging a 300-Year-Old Theory of Thought
Mental imagery might not be as central to complex human thought as we believed, philosophers say.
Harnessing Frustration: Using LLMs to Overcome Activation Energy
One of my biggest weaknesses as a software engineer is procrastination when facing a new project. When the scope is unclear, I have a tendency to wait until I feel I’ve “felt out” the problem to start doing anything. I know I’ll feel better and work much faster when I get “stuck in” but I still struggle with that first step, overcoming the “activation energy” required to engage with the details. LLMs have been a game-changer for me in this respect: I can just throw a couple of sentences at them with the shape of the problem. This leads to one of two outcomes: The LLM comes up with a good solution, usually in a slightly different way than what I was thinking. I realize “oh wow the solution is much simpler than I thought”. Straight away I start thinking about the consequences of implementing and improving what the LLM suggested. The LLM comes up with a solution that I intuitively recognize as “wrong”. My immediate reaction is frustration (“How could it get it so wrong”) which leads me to go back and forth with the model, explaining to it why its solution could not possibly work. But in the process of arguing with the model, my brain is churning away and generating variations or different approaches that could work. After a while, even if the AI is still on the wrong track, the debate will trigger a moment of inspiration where suddenly the solution will come to me. I’ll excitedly start up a new conversation and start working through it with the model. The key is the emotional reaction I have immediately to the LLM’s response, either excitement or frustration. By harnessing this immediate feedback loop, I get my brain out of its passive, procrastination mode. It’s almost like a jolt: either I’m thrilled because it’s simpler than I thought, or I’m spurred to action by the urge to correct a perceived ‘wrong’ answer. This forces me to engage with the problem in a meaningful way.
How to reclaim your attention from the distraction economy | Psyche Videos
Could you watch this video on full screen, 1x speed, with no distractions? Here are five steps to rebuild your attention span
You don't have to be smart if you can think clearly
When you’re on fire, problems are transparent: they’re solved simply by the act of looking at them. Even complicated layers of multiple problems can simply be glanced through like stacked panes of glass. But nobody can work that way all the time.
The Grug Brained Developer
this collection of thoughts on software development gathered by grug brain developer
Cognitive Bias Lab | Learn to Make Better Decisions
Explore cognitive biases with interactive tests, simulations, and real-world examples. Free platform to sharpen decision-making and critical thinking — no sign-up needed.
The Human-in-the-Loop is Tired
On reward functions, dopamine, and what it actually feels like when the code starts writing itself
why "things to do instead of doomscrolling" never works
Rotating the Space: On LLMs as a Medium for Thought
An essay on LLMs as a cognitive medium
I work, I think? - Annotated
How AI may quietly dismantle the feedback loop that turns inexperienced people into competent ones, and why my work matters to me.
The wandering mind: A gift we squander - Darius Foroux
Most people treat a wandering mind like a defect. They see it as a leak in their productivity bucket. We’ve been conditioned to believe that if we aren’t staring at a screen or checking off a to-do list, we are failing. But Daniel Goleman, the […]
