I'm not afraid of AI. I'm afraid of using it badly

I'm not afraid of AI.

I'm afraid of me, with AI, after midnight.

Let me explain.

Some of my ideas only look brilliant late at night. In the morning they look like what they are. What usually separates the two isn't a tool. It's sleep, and a partner who reads things with a clear head.

Now picture one of those ideas with a tool behind it. A plan, a draft and three emails before I've finished my coffee. Sounds wonderful. Until you remember the idea was wrong.

Faster isn't the same as better

Every week there's a new promise. Do in an afternoon what used to take a month. Write the code, answer the client, build the product.

I don't doubt that some of it is true. I build software for small businesses. I look after websites that have to stay up. I'd be foolish to pretend none of this affects me.

But I've noticed something about speed. It doesn't care what you feed it.

If you bring judgement, it multiplies judgement. If you bring a midnight idea, it multiplies that too. And it does it with excellent grammar.

AI won't give you judgement. It just makes whatever you already have go faster, including the lack of it.

That's what worries me. Not that the machine thinks. That I stop.

That I answer a client without really reading their problem, because the reply came out so nicely. That I ship a feature nobody asked for, because it only took an afternoon. That I maintain a server I no longer quite understand, because something else understood it for me.

In our line of work, understanding is the job. You can delegate the work. You can't delegate the responsibility. I don't think a tool changes that. I suspect it makes it more important.

No one is asking me for an AI slide

Here's the part I like about running a company with no investors.

Nobody is waiting for my AI strategy. There's no board meeting where I have to show a slide with a robot on it. No round that needs a trendy word to close.

Patient money means patient decisions. I can look at things calmly and decide later. Or not at all.

I've always had one rule with money: I don't put it into things I can't explain. I think it works for tools too. If I can't explain what something does for a client, in one sentence, without the word "revolutionary", it's not ready to touch their business.

And I suspect the clients aren't asking for AI either. A club treasurer wants the fees collected. Someone running a rural guesthouse wants the bookings to arrive and the website to stay up. They want fewer problems, not more buzzwords.

If a new tool ever helps with that, wonderful. I'll use it and I won't make a fuss about it.

If it's only there so we sound modern, no thanks. We've managed to sound unfashionable for twelve years. I'm not giving that up now.

So no, I'm not afraid of AI.

I'm afraid of the version of me who wants to save twenty minutes and stop thinking for them.

Luckily, that version has a partner who reads things in the morning.

P.S. If one day I announce that Foxnice is "AI-first", please check what time it is.