Extended Overthinking
On AI, slot machines, and forgetting how to craft pixels
I’m tired of AI lately. Not of what it can do. Of what it does to me.
Every new model, every new tool, every new workflow. Yes, they’re powerful. Yes, they let us do more. But there’s this weird disconnect growing between me and the things I make. When everything is instant, it starts feeling like a slot machine. Except you always win. Which makes it more addictive. And somehow... also boring?
And you can’t stop. Social media keeps telling us to ship more, faster, be first. But when anyone has the power of a team of 10x engineers (lol), being first isn’t even a moat anymore. It’s just being slightly less late.
The worst part is what this comic is about. I catch myself using AI for things I used to enjoy doing. Changing a font size. Adjusting the border radius. Pushing pixels until the result made me proud.
I still do something similar, but now it’s a conversation. I tell the spirit in the terminal to do it for me. “Make the left padding a bit wider. Make the animation snappier. Use our subtle foreground color... don’t use any color, use our color token. Oh, and make it smaller, go from sm to xs.” That’s my new pixel-pushing.
Why? Because I can. And that’s the trap.
The thing gets done but it doesn’t feel like I did anything. I could’ve written that code myself... but sometimes I don’t even know where the component lives in the files. I’d have to inspect the element in the browser, find the classes, copy them, search them in my IDE, locate the file, then edit it (am I the only one who does this?) So instead... I just talk to the machine. I overexplain so it only changes what I want. I don’t design anymore. I direct.
But these things could direct themselves too. The “human in the loop” feels less like the guide and more like the thing slowing it all down. Some people call this slowing of the machine... this fine-tuning... “taste.” The ultimate human moat. Guys, stop it with your “taste.” I’ve seen how you dress. You don’t have any. And taste is really just doing things the way the top 10% of creators do instead of the average. That’s a pattern. Patterns are exactly what these things are built to learn… just give it time (a month?).
But hey... this comic? I tried new angles, more creative shots. All hand-drawn. No model. No worktree. No extra-high reasoning. Just me and the canvas. And that feels good. Like... “look, mom, I made this!”
Look, I’m in a rut. I really love these tools, I love creating with AI, I’ve never felt so productive. They’re wild and they’re powerful. But I hope we keep the joy. Because if everything is automated and instant but doesn’t feel like ours... what are we even making?
I feel this post so much, and I only have a tiny fraction of the experience and talent you have with all of this stuff. But I did notice something similar with getting addicted to Suno as an experiment since January.
I had planned to use it as part of my production process, but it became so easy and quick to produce a whole thing that satisfied my immediate need, I just couldn't be bothered to make music the old way. I was ODing (Over Dopamining) I think, and everything else I was meant to do in life and work just felt even more dull.
Anyway Pablo. Keep rocking. And sharing.
I love this (hand drawn w/ love) comic, Pablo. This note resonates, and I agree that it is not an interesting role for humans to simply be the "movie critics" so to speak, watching life play out on screens in front of them with no direct involvement. There's always the messy middle during a big change, but I think we need to do what we can to keep focus on human action and agency and sorting out what that looks like to be meaningful and life-giving, versus the opposite.