Like the rest of the world, I've been tinkering with AI for the last few years. For me, it started in 2021 when I gained access to OpenAI's GPT-3. I was on my own "bachelor's trip" at a cabin near Bear Lake in northern Utah, geeking out over how amazing these APIs were. A friend of mine had been curating data for an app he was developing—one that paired groups of friends with activities—and I was experimenting with using AI to seed and refine this data. I was amazed to see a machine generate data that somewhat resembled what my friend had manually curated for months.

Then came image models—Stable Diffusion 1.5 was my entry point. I learned how to fine-tune them using LoRA adapters and even created my own derivative checkpoints. One of my favorite projects was training models to generate images of my kids, allowing me to create custom coloring pages featuring their faces. That process led me to fine-tune LLaMA models as well, which, after quantization, I realized I could do entirely on my MacBook Pro. I experimented with training models on the writings of some of my favorite thinkers, like George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis. Then came voice models—having my kids sing "Go Bananas, Go Go Bananas" and hearing it come out in Joe Biden's voice was absolutely hilarious.

After my brother passed away in 2022, I almost trained models on his texts, voice, and pictures so that I could continue to experience some version of him. However, I knew at best, I'd only be creating a distorted caricature of him to avoid my own grief. A caricature that couldn't hold a candle to the real him with his completely unpredictable humor and uniqueness. Frankly, I don't know if there is a model that is both uncensored and completely loving & accepting enough to serve as a foundation for a caricature of that man. He was a human paradox. No human fits neatly into the dimensions of personality we strive to force them into. They can be wild and calming, irreverent and safe, prideful and utterly human, and most of all, unpredictable. The people in our lives are unmistakably "other" and what we know of them is a fragment of the infinitude of who they are and it's pitiful to think that can be compressed into a set of numbers. Still, I suppose it's only natural to reach for the tools we have to relieve our grief—after all, people have been doing it with photos and videos for years.

Another area where AI had a dark side for me was how mindlessly I started using it. I had it generate bedtime stories for my kids instead of making up my own. I pasted in code snippets, tweaking AI-generated solutions until something worked, only then did I bother putting in the effort to understand why I had a problem in the first place. I copied errors from my software without even reading them. It became so useful that I noticed my brain starting to under-function. I used to tell personalized, creative stories to my kids before bed. I used to write code with monochrome syntax highlighting to focus purely on the structure. I designed software in my head and my unit tests before implementing it. I always made sure I knew the "why" behind every bug. (That habit, thankfully, never died.) I realized that over-functioning with AI was a slippery slope to under-functioning myself.

Recently, I've been reflecting on how I use AI, and a book helped crystallize my thoughts: Brave New Words by Sal Khan. The book opens with Sal's daughter co-authoring a story with AI. This subtle change, where the AI cooperates with the human asking them to take part in the writing is such a meaningful improvement versus having AI write the whole story as I've done for my kids. Generalizing this idea to have AI collaborate with you, rather than work on behalf of you leads to a more enriching use of the tools. GPT Tasks have helped me take this "flip the script" approach to another level.

I've started using GPT Tasks in this way. Every morning, AI asks me a systems design, programming, or computer science question. It then reviews my response, points out errors in my thinking, and highlights learning opportunities. This gives me the chance to articulate my understanding and immediately receive feedback from an infinitely patient tutor. Already, I feel like I've learned more from this approach than from using AI as a crutch to hurry through debugging.

Another example is using AI for writing feedback. Instead of having it draft documents for me, I write the initial draft and then ask AI, "I've written the following document for purpose X. What considerations have I missed? What are the best counterarguments?" This allows me to reap the cognitive benefits of writing—mental clarity and deep thinking—while refining my message and considering alternative perspectives. Besides, writing with my own voice and personality makes my work worth reading, unlike the sterile, alienatingly boringly perfect output AI often produces.

They say that whenever a new medium emerges, people first use it to replicate the old ones:

• Film → Theater: Early films were static, staged-like plays with a single camera angle.
• TV → Radio: Early television shows were essentially filmed radio programs.
• Web → Print: Early websites mimicked newspapers, with rigid layouts and no interactivity.
• Streaming → Cable: Early streaming platforms copied TV schedules and weekly episode releases.

In this same vein, I was using AI to mimic exactly what I had been doing before—just through a new medium. I created bedtime stories, so I had AI create bedtime stories. I made silly Photoshop edits of my kids, so I had AI generate silly images of them. I wrote code and fixed errors, so I had AI write code and fix errors. I was treating AI as a tool to bridge into familiar territories rather than recognizing it as something entirely new.

I'm starting to see AI not just as a tool, but as a new medium—one that unlocks entirely new types of experiences. Instead of simply answering my questions, AI can help me ask better ones. Instead of generating my writing, it can challenge and refine my thoughts. In this role, AI becomes less like a crutch and more like a mentor—one that pushes me to grow rather than shrink. Before, AI was a bit like a pet genie on a chain—immensely powerful, tempting me to let it do more and more while I become smaller in its shadow. The real danger isn't that AI is too powerful, but that it can make us less powerful if we use it passively. If we let it generate for us rather than provoke us, if we let it replace curiosity instead of fueling it, we risk shrinking into lazy consumers. AI can either diminish us or stretch us into something greater than we were before. The choice is ours: do we hold the chain and wither, or do we show self-discipline, put in the work, and use this genie to help us thrive?

AI isn't just a tool for creating content within the mediums we already know. AI is the new medium. Try flipping the script and see what happens.