The AI Convenience Trap No One Warned Moms About

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

***

Shortly after the birth of my third son, I was talking with my grandmother, whose homemaking without computers, air conditioning, and a host of other modern conveniences was beginning to seem miraculous. I admitted to her how often my husband and I resort to takeout for dinner and how I struggle to find time to make even three or four home-cooked meals a week. How she managed to get meals almost entirely from scratch on the table with far fewer resources at her fingertips, and with four children at that, was beyond me. I asked her how on earth she did it.

What she said shocked me. She responded by asking me the same thing. My grandmother said she didn’t know how I balanced everything. She said life was slower back then, and she wasn’t as busy as I am.

While she may have some rose-colored glasses when it comes to remembering her past, this interaction nonetheless made me view my reliance on technology in a new light. The more I have thought about it, the more convinced I am that the very technological advancements that make my life easier — the most recent being artificial intelligence — actually contribute to a busier, more overwhelming life.

I’ll be the first to acknowledge that AI has proven and will continue to prove beneficial to society in many ways, particularly through its ability to expedite human ingenuity when employed wisely in the professional sphere. I saw this firsthand when I worked in the intelligence community. But in the personal sphere, I’m skeptical of AI’s overall benefit, and I worry that its promise to make everyday tasks easier may come with more strings than we care to imagine.

Even simple tasks offloaded to AI lead to large amounts of wasted screen time. A few months ago, I asked ChatGPT to generate a meal plan for a week of healthy, easy meals. It spit out some good recipes, and while not overly complicated, one poke bowl-style recipe included pickled onions. I rarely ever use pickled onions, and I ended up making another inquiry to find other meals to make with the pickled onions that would inevitably be left over. I also asked where certain ingredients came from, researched their calories, and checked my grocery app to make sure my preferred grocery store carried pickled onions. ChatGPT often leads to tangents and extended phone time beyond the simple task at hand.

Perhaps more sinisterly, AI platforms encourage this continued use. Anyone who engages with AI regularly knows how its answers are regenerative, encouraging users to extend their searches by further refining or even redirecting users toward new inquiries. AI programs such as ChatGPT or Grok often suggest targeted follow-up inquiries based on the original prompt. Would you like a lower-carb version? An exportable recipe list to share? Suddenly, I’m considering that one of my other busy mom friends would like one of the recipes ChatGPT has given me, and I begin texting the recipe link out to other moms who I think may appreciate them. So there I am, 25 minutes into meal prepping, and I haven’t begun at all. I’m still on my phone.

Technology has an uncanny way of making life busier while making specific tasks easier. Although you may not have spent 30-plus minutes on ChatGPT meal plan tangents like I have, you probably know what I mean. Facebook Marketplace, Google Classrooms, community or city websites, even weather apps — they all make life easier and facilitate incredible information sharing, but they have an unparalleled way of consuming our time. We’re drowning in digital to-dos and an overwhelming amount of online information that we feel obligated to check on a daily basis.

Enter ChatGPT, and we’re only further compounding our digital busyness in the name of expediency. A Pew Research study last fall found something interesting: While Americans express concern over the amount of control AI has in their lives, over half of them use AI daily, and an even higher percentage — 73% of Americans — say that they are willing to allow AI to assist them, at least to some small degree, with day-to-day activities. In other words, while Americans are concerned about AI, it is becoming increasingly woven into our already digitally maxed-out lives. 

This got me thinking, if I hadn’t turned to AI for recipe help, what would I have done instead? Brainstormed harder to come up with some on my own? Asked a friend for her go-to meals? Experimented with recipe creation in an entrepreneurial trial-and-error process? Whatever I would have done, I am convinced it would have been better than the time I spent on ChatGPT searching for meals and embarking down other AI rabbit holes.

In a post-pandemic world, we know all too well the profound shallowness of digital dependence. Using AI to assist with daily tasks and decisions will make life easier in the same way that social media allows us to connect with other people: It will be far less rewarding than ways that we could pursue the same ends offline. Screens flatten genuine human connection and chip away at self-discipline and contentment. AI further liberates us from everyday dependence on friends and family, minimizing the need to ask another human for small matters of advice in decisions for which we now use AI. It also liberates us from the rewarding process and intrinsic fulfillment that comes from brainstorming things ourselves.

And in thus liberating us, it robs us of the everyday joys that come from these mundane human interactions and from the power of organic ideas. As a society, we desperately need to ingest the truth that engaging in activities — whether those be simple matters of housekeeping or artistic and intellectual endeavors — in a way that cultivates wisdom, virtue, self-discipline, and genuine human relationships is the true measure of time well spent. The next time I’m tempted to turn to ChatGPT for recipe ideas, I’m going to call my grandmother and ask her instead. 

***

Rebekah Bills is a freelance writer and mother of three. She previously served as a civilian intelligence officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency.