I’d say I was quite late to start using gen AI. I was curious about it but nothing more. I remember seeing my friends asking chatGPT for things instead of googling them. So eventually I started doing that too. Since then gen AI has become an important source of information but also a guide to improve my productivity.
First of all, gen AI helps me with panning my days to ensure I have enough time for all the work/ study related and personal tasks. I use it to create study timelines for university subjects by giving it deadlines and topics I need to study. I also use it for planning my workouts at the gym as well as my weekly meals to ensure I can reach my fitness goals.
Moreover, when I took a gap year between my Bachelor and Master studies to travel around Asia, AI helped me a lot with that as well. It has been very helpful in creating travel itineraries for different countries taking my time frame, interests and my budget into account. For example, when I went to the Philippines I wasn’t sure which places to go to as there are over 7.5 thousand islands. So I used gen AI to help me narrow it down. I specified my budget, the fact that I had two months in the country, that I was very interested in scuba diving and that I wanted to meet other young travellers. In a couple of seconds I had a complete itinerary of islands to visit that fit my exact criteria. In the end, the Philippines became one of my favourite destinations of the trip and it took no time to create a perfect plan for it.
For me, AI has become something like a personal assistant. It helps me to structure my day, helps to achieve my goals, both academic and personal, and saves my time. It allows me to focus on things that are actually important for me.
I think AI doesn’t replace us but rather allows us to multiply our productivity and enrich our lives.
It’s interesting how your post highlights AI as a way to amplify personal agency rather than automate it. What struck me is that you’re essentially outsourcing the structure of your decisions; timelines, itineraries, routines while still keeping the choices your own. That raises a bigger question: does relying on AI to frame options subtly shape what we consider possible in the first place?
I’ve noticed that when I use generative tools, my plans sometimes become more ambitious simply because the suggestions make big goals look feasible. Do you think AI might be expanding your sense of what’s achievable, or could it also be narrowing it by steering you toward patterns it “thinks” you’ll like?
I was quite late to implementing ChatGPT in my own life as well and only started using it because my friends were raving about it and its applications. I like how you’ve been using AI in so many different areas of your life, like studying, workouts, meal planning and travel. Especially the example of you using ChatGPT to plan your holiday to the Philippines is very interesting. It’s great that AI was able to help you narrow down thousands of options into a plan that worked for you. I also like how you described AI as more of a personal assistant to us and an enrichment to our lives rather than a replacement of us. I agree that it can definitely be helpful to us.