Idea necrosis

Over the last weeks, I’ve started to be aware of a noticeable decline in my ability to generate new ideas on my own. Instead, what comes to mind is a compulsion or desire to reach for my phone and ask ChatGPT.

This effect seems to target anything of novel creation; even in writing this journal entry, my first reaction is to reach and open the LLM. Friday messages I send to the team, the idea of generating them from scratch, taxes my motivation. If I want to enumerate next-actions for a plan, a key element of executive function, my mind drifts. It reaches out across the ether of potential action for chat.

I have a deep, growing worry on this, but how I recognize it is odd; it’s not that I’m worried that this is hurting me, it’s a worry of taking the LLM away. Like an addict, thinking about quitting.

That’s how I know this is real. It’s dangerous. The part of me that wants what it can’t, or shouldn’t, have, is screaming at the thought of its removal. The darkness inside, trying to convince me it isn’t a problem to solve.

This is what tells me this might be a problem.