Welcome to The Purpose Memo, a newsletter where I give you ideas for wrestling your life back from digital technology and living a principled life.
If someone forwarded you this, join them and other readers here.
Read time: 9 minutes
“Is it coincidence, or just a kind of grand irony, that loneliness has spiked just as our media became ‘social,’ our technology became ‘personal,’ and our machines learned to recognize our faces?”
When AI Replaced My Dad
We moved into a new house last year.
A handful of newfound luxuries came along with the move, including a programmable Orbit sprinkler system. Maintaining a green lawn requires good irrigation, so we were excited to put it to use.
There was only one thing standing between me and a well-watered yard: figuring out how to use the system.
It looked self-explanatory, so I took a few minutes out of my Saturday to start turning some knobs and pushing some buttons. I eventually had all four zones set to run for exactly 15 minutes, twice a week. I switched the system to “auto” and walked away.
The following Monday would be the moment of truth. I would either hear the early morning spray outside of our bedroom window, or I’d be back to square one.
Monday came. The sprinkler heads rose from the ground and started watering. I smiled.
Victory.
As the system cycled through the zones—front yard, back yard, side of the house, flower beds—I noticed one of the zones that had already completed its cycle was running again. I didn’t think much of it. Perhaps my memory was failing me.
But by the second hour of continuous sprinkling, it became evident that something had gone awry. I went back to the garage and manually switched everything off.
Defeat.
What happened next was something I’ve thought about many times since.
I pulled my phone out to call my dad and ask for help. He’s used sprinkler systems for years and I knew he’d be able to troubleshoot with me. As my thumb hovered over the green phone icon, I happened to catch a glimpse of the ChatGPT icon sitting beside it.
Just then, a new thought occurred to me. ChatGPT had recently released a video feature with the capability of “talking” to you about anything you showed with your phone camera. Thus, with an ever-so-slight movement of my thumb, I clicked on the ChatGPT app instead.
The experience was extraordinary—the kind that would have seemed impossible a few years ago. Holding my phone up to the system, I started explaining things and asking questions. Its response made me feel as if I was speaking to the inventor of the system, or at the very least, having a FaceTime conversation with a perfectly knowledgable and articulate Orbit technician.
Within minutes, I solved my problem.
Victory.
And yet, something unsettled me about the whole ordeal. AI didn’t just help me solve a problem. It replaced a role that my father would have filled. A role that he wanted to fill.
This same situation happened again a few weeks later when an outlet in my kitchen stopped working. My dad has some experience working with circuits, so I had little doubt he could help me with a quick fix. But I couldn’t resist that euphoric, magical experience I’d had with the sprinklers. So I asked ChatGPT instead. It worked.
My uneasy feelings about those interactions have become clearer in retrospect: I had thought much of what ChatGPT would add to my life and little of what it would take away. With the subtlest adjustment of my thumb, I traded in a moment of father-son connection for a human-machine interaction. Efficiency trumped relationship.
Defeat.
This story illuminates a fundamentally important principle for living a flourishing life in the modern era:
Once you know what you’ll gain from adopting a new technology, you must force yourself to also consider what you might lose.
Time and time again, I’ve had to learn this lesson the hard way. (That is why this newsletter exists.)
Andy Crouch, the man responsible for this edition’s opening quote, has spent most of his life studying humanity’s relationship with technology. He argues that every technical advance in history makes two distinct promises: 1) “now you’ll be able to…” and 2) “you’ll no longer have to…”
The first expands human capacity. The second relieves us of some toil, drudgery, stress, or quite often, skill.
But these promises do not arrive alone. Listen to Crouch as he explains the flip side of technological advancement:
There are two other consequences of any new device… and they accompany “now you’ll be able to” and “you’ll no longer have to” as surely as night follows day:
“You’ll no longer be able to…”—The acquisition of this piece of technology will inevitably shrink your capacity and experience in one dimension, often a creative dimension, even as it expands in the direction of consumption.
“Now you’ll have to…”—The new technology will enforce new requirements, new behaviors, new patterns of life, whether you wanted it to or not.
…Devices require us to accept a great deal of you’ll no longer be able to and, increasingly, to accept a great deal of coerced behavior in the form of now you’ll have to to access their promises of now you’ll be able to and you’ll no longer have to.
Two small verbiage tweaks. One big tongue twister (you might need to read that quote again). Massive implications.
Side note: Crouch divides technology into devices and instruments. If you’d like to read more about what separates a device from an instrument in a future edition, reply “interested.”
Let’s take my aforementioned situation and run it through this grid:
Now I’ll be able to…
Fix the system in minimal time. Have questions answered instantaneously. Get step-by-step instructions for any use case.
I’ll no longer have to…
Interact with a human to acquire the desired information. Make a phone call to solve a problem. Hunt for a YouTube tutorial.
I’ll no longer be able to…
Solve the problem by thinking critically. Ask my dad for help. Remember what it’s like to have to wait for an answer.
Now I’ll have to…
Have my phone with me to fix the problem. Disclose more personal information to the AI knowledge base. Get better at communicating with a machine.
In a pinch, ChatGPT sounds like a good option. Over the long run, I’m not so sure.
Our economically developed western context presents us with an endless amount of these tradeoffs:
GPS - We can navigate anywhere on the planet with ease, and yet have somehow lost our sense of direction. Many young people are unable read a map or recall the names of streets they traverse daily.
Notifications - All of our information comes to us in “real time,” but our attention is fragmented and we’ve lost our ability to focus. Our peers and colleagues expect us to know information within minutes of its circulation, increasing our felt obligation to stay continuously connected.
Cars - We can travel great distances in short amounts of time. But now, none of our frequented institutions are within walking distance, which means we have to use a car if we want to go anywhere. Our cities and towns are built more for cars than for humans. (Today, you’re less likely to live in the same city as your extended family than just about any other time in human history. You’ll more often see your nieces and nephews on a screen than in person.)
Streaming Services - Virtually every movie/show is accessible on-demand with any device. Not surprisingly, we them watch alone on our couches and beds rather than as a family at home or with friends at the movies.
If one person uses ChatGPT to solve a run-of-the-mill household problem, it seems fairly useful and rather harmless.
But if every single person decided to start wielding AI chatbots to compensate for their lack of handiness instead of soliciting aid from family and friends, are we better off as a society?
Let me remind you that you are a human—an inherently social creature with the capacity to create, feel, and love. You have a soul. That is what you must recall when you’re on the precipice of adopting a new technology.
The allure of superpowers promised (and granted) by the dizzying technological advancement of our age will only grow stronger.
Perhaps we ought to pause and consider who we’d rather become: productivity machines moving through life with a robotic efficiency, or fully alive human beings with deep family bonds, meaningful friendships, shared responsibilities, and dignifying contributions to the world?
I think I’ll take the latter.
Thanks for reading! Two final notes:
Reply to this email with any questions, comments, or feedback. I’ll respond.
These ideas have changed my life and I feel a responsibility to pass them along. Take a second to think of someone who might benefit from reading this piece. Forward it along and start a conversation.
See you next week.
PW