3 Ways I’m Avoiding a Daily AI-Induced Meltdown 🤖

and what Steven Bartlett has to do with it

Ok, I’ll admit it. Every few weeks for the last few months I’ve had a small-scale freak out about AI and the future of my job/life/humanity as we know it.

I’m sure you feel it too. The inability to move for scaremonger-y headlines and think-pieces about how ultimately we’re all doomed.

What was it that the ‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton said?

We should all become plumbers. Because a job like that — one requiring manual labour — is a safe bet as AI is increasingly able to handle much of the work that us knowledge workers can do.

This statement was made on the ‘Diary of a CEO’.

Time for a not-so-mini segue: I used to love this show when it first started and Steven Bartlett delivered on its promise, interviewing a range of interesting entrepreneurs and reading snippets from his actual (business) diary.

Now, it’s become something else entirely. It’s given a mouthpiece to (some) questionable characters and a platform on which to spread harmful health misinformation.

“In an analysis of 15 health-related podcast episodes, BBC World Service found each contained an average of 14 harmful health claims that went against extensive scientific evidence.”

Recently, Bartlett brought ‘world leading investment expert’ Cathie Wood onto the show so she could “reveal the best investments to make in 2025 to get rich fast”. It wasn’t until I dug into the comments section of the YouTube video that I learned more about Wood. Her company, ARK Invest, is considered to be the third highest "wealth destroyer", losing $14 billion in wealth over the last decade.

Here’s the thing: Steven Bartlett is not a journalist. He doesn’t push back or question his guests. They are allowed to say whatever they like without interrogation.

And the problem is — his team are incredible at what they do. By which I mean, SB’s content is everywhere. And that can’t make the zeitgeist-y AI conversation really hard to ignore. Especially those heart-stopping one liners from ‘experts’ about how we’re all f*%&ed.

But this isn’t a post about Steven Bartlett. Well, not entirely (more on him in point 2).

This is a post about the 3 ways I’m trying not to have daily freak outs about AI 🤖

Let’s go!

1. I’m not burying my head in the sand

One way of handling all the AI furore is to ignore it. To continue as we are and hope that it’s a big old fuss about nothing. Or a fuss about something — but not anything as work-altering and life-changing as the media would have us believe.

This was my approach up until a few days ago. Since then (and this is still very new for me… things could change again!), I’ve decided I will not ignore it and will try to embrace it instead.

One of the reasons I didn’t want to do this was because of the very real environmental consequences.

“Each time a model is used, perhaps by an individual asking ChatGPT to summarize an email, the computing hardware that performs those operations consumes energy. Researchers have estimated that a ChatGPT query consumes about five times more electricity than a simple web search.” — MIT

And that’s just a simple query. The environmental impact is multiplied significantly when you start talking about creating more complex AI agents (a system that is capable of completing tasks like arranging meetings, conducting research, or sending emails on behalf of users).

The environmental impact worries me. But until governments decide to step in and regulate AI (which isn’t the plan here in the UK) or factor it into climate change policy, this technology will continue to progress whether I object to it or not.

That’s not to say it’s not overhyped. It very well could be. And that’s an eventuality I’m also prepared for — I’m not quitting my job as a social media manager, don’t panic! — but things have started to change already. We’ve all seen how using tools like ChatGPT even a tiny bit can make us more productive and, dare I say, creative. I don’t think that’s going away anytime soon.

My hope (and something I’ve felt more positive about after following the people mentioned below) is that for most of us, AI will become a ‘co-pilot’. Not replacing our job entirely, but making our lives a little easier, our work more efficient.

2. I’m curating my social media feeds

It’s a lot easier to feel somewhat positive about AI when you haven’t got certain people filling your social media timelines.

For starters, I’ve been actively seeking out more (online) content that’s unrelated to AI. Particularly on YouTube. That looks like lovely house renovations, (Homeworthy, House & Garden, Caroline Winkler, Never Too Small) restaurant/hotel reviews (Hannah Ricketts), and my lifestyle content creator faves (Lily Pebbles, Kutovakika).

The more of that type of content I engage with, the less of the SB-style content I see on my homepage.

But as I said in point 1, I’m not trying to avoid info about AI altogether. I’m just trying to be very selective with who I listen to when it comes to that subject.

There are, of course, lots more names I could’ve mentioned (and so many I’m sure I don’t even know exist yet - please share them with me if so!). But here are some of the sensible people whose wisdom I trust:

• Damien Talks Money (he mostly talks about investing but this video on the future of work was great — and v. reassuring)

• Ali Abdaal (another sensible, measured human being)

• Ex-Meta data scientist, Tina Huang (a recent discovery — I’ve enjoyed her educational AI videos the most)

• Liam Ottley (he runs a successful AI agency in New Zealand - I really like the way he talks about things like website builders (Squarespace, Wix) not making traditional website developers redundant and instead opening up a whole new market for developers specialised in those builders)

I’m also trying to spend less time on my screens and more time reading interesting essays — some of which are, you guessed it, about AI. I’m really enjoying New Yorker writer Joshua Rothman’s pieces on this subject at the moment. Particularly his recent feature ‘What’s Happening To Reading?’

3. I’m improving my knowledge on the subject

Me trying to set up an AI Agent that helps me generate content ideas

The image above is from n8n, a workflow automation platform that enables you to automate a process in your life/business using a combination of apps, tools, and platforms.

You can use n8n to set up your own ‘AI Agent’. An AI Agent is a software program that uses tools to accomplish goals.

For example, I could set up an AI Agent that helps me qualify and respond to new inquiries to my website automatically.

This is the usual process: 1. Someone fills out a form on my website > 2. I get an email notifying me of their application > 3. I read through the answers and decide a) whether they’re a good fit (or not) or b) whether a call is needed > 4. I respond as soon as I get a chance (usually 2-3 days later) > 5. I wait for them to reply > and on and on and on.

How an AI Agent could help

I could automate all of those steps by replicating this workflow in n8n using drag-and-drop ‘nodes’ and a little bit of code.

Now, if I’m making it sound like this is easy — it’s not. Setting this up is a learning curve. I spent almost 3 hours yesterday trying to set up the beginnings of an AI Agent to help me generate content ideas. It was slow. Things kept not working. My brain hurt in the way that it does when you’re learning a new language and you’re crap at languages.

That being said, it’s so much easier doing this stuff with the wealth of YouTube explainer videos available, not to mention things like ChatGPT (though it did give me a lot of wrong info yesterday), and AI coding assistants that can help noobs like me to write code.

I like learning new things — experimenting with new tools — so I find playing around with n8n fun and frustrating in equal measure. Getting more hands-on with this technology has also helped to alleviate my AI existential crisis.

Not least because it’s got me doing (not doom-scrolling) and also shown me that this stuff is still hard. It’s not perfect. Every single business, every single human being is unique — their processes, their behaviour — and that’s why automating things takes time, patience, and constant iterating. In some (many?) cases, it just won’t be possible.

I think there’s hope for us mere mortals yet ❤️

I’d love to know how you’re feeling about AI right now? And if you have anyone whose opinion you really trust on the subject?

P.S. If you’d like some light relief about Steven Bartlett / the culture of productivity, you might like this: