This overdependence on AI

June 29, 2025

‘Another form of dependence.’

I’ve decided to resume sharing my thoughts on linkedin again.

In 2022, I started learning DSA for the first time and because accountability always worked for me, I decided to share my daily learnings on linkedin. I would wake up at 3AM to study for 2 hours before my day began and I would share, gradually my account grew from just over 1,000 connections/followers to over 8,000.

Eight-ish month later in september, after the uphveal of job search, rejections, I got a job only to have my offer rescinded a week before resumption. I did not take it to well, I moved to a new city and decided to take a break from linkedin.

It also felt like a good idea to go for NYSC at that point.

In 2023, I got a job and decided to try again but I felt so conscious about being active on linkedin, looking back that was soooo silly because I literally had so much to share from that time. Working at an early stage startup, a fintech meant that there was no end to learning - or the challenges.

In 2024, I’d let the fear of what others would think cripple me, and I’d also let the opinions of how cringe “software engineer influencers wannabe” get to me, but I’d forgotten that yapping was literally a core of my identity. You could bury me in a hole and I’d yap about the solitude of the cage.

I moved to a new country, started job hunting and got right into creating a personal blog where I could yap in peace - afterall if I didn’t feel safe doing it on linkedin, I could do it here, in the comfort of my IDE and 0 audience. This, regardless, satisfies me.

All this to say, I thoroughly enjoy sharing my thoughts. Whether that be about what I was currently learning or whatever!

I’ve spent the first half of this year planning my career move post-relocation, as such I did not feel all that put together to post on linkedin (i know other social media tools exist but I enjoy posting on linkedin).

It is the June 29th, and I’ve begun planning to commence my public yapping on everyday learning when I was hit with the biggest writer’s block.

I know what I want to talk about, lol, I’ve learnt A WHOLE TON during my job search and I’m just bubbling with experience but I do not want to preach at people, or God forbid advice them. I simply want to share what I’ve learnt and been up to, and the first thing I thought to do was write my thoughts, feed it to ChatGPT to “clean it up”.

I shudder at the recollections of the automatic sequence of actions that happened.

This has become quite the reflex for me - write a resume, cover letter, code, documentation, message response - then feed it to chatGPT for its opinion and obvious “making it better”.

This has made me semi-lazy with curating intention behind my words because after all the GPT is going to “clean it up”.

Or the sheer horror of putting out a piece without first running it by the AI overlord.

I realize I am beginning to lose a core part of what makes my writing/or any process me, I was outsourcing and becoming dependent on artificial intelligence.

And I’m not going to butter this up by saying this is not a bad thing — it is a bad thing. When you use calculator to confirm 2x2 best believe you are cooked. (No be for real).

Yes the AI can butter things up, help with ideas but the biggest issue for me here is the co-depedence. The lack of confidence or autonomy in our decision making without the help of an AI. It is becoming an addiction.

We can all agree that people can get addicted to their phones as much as they do substance, so this should not come as a surprise that same can happen with artificial intelligence.

In the meantime, if you haven’t already, you should read this recent research carried out by MIT. Guys! With phone addiction, I was on the defense. Learning how damaging too much screen time can be, and then installing railguards to come out of this loop. With over-dependence on artificial intelligence, you get to be on the offense.

I interviewed for a company who absolutely required that I use claude and cursor on the job, the use of AI was an absolute. I had no problem with that as long as they were paying for the licenses, lol, and I got to use my brain outside of work. But the long term effect of companies having their engineers overly dependent on AI is not something these guys are out for. And… why should they, it’s not their brain being gradually degraded.

These are some of the steps I am taking to curb my codependency with artificial intelligence:

  • Absolutely, no AI-produced writing, it’s better crappy that montonously curated (it won’t be crappy though, lol)
  • Use my brain FIRST. Only after some struggle do I let the GPT jump in e.g try to understand that bug before asking the AI
  • Have 1-2 AI free days (literally try this, see how deep your withdrawals run, lol)
  • Do you need ideas? Sit with your brain for some few minutes before asking the GPT to generate a couple for you. And even if it does, constantly be asking yourself why, curiousity sparks interest sparks brain power use.

I would love to hear about all of the ways you are (un)using AI, feel free to share some tips/tricks/insights/study.