Imagine you’re about to do something brave. Maybe you’re writing a cold email to someone you admire, or applying for a job. 

If you wanted a second pair of eyes or gut check for your email, you needed to ask a smart friend. That way, you’d feel confident—at least another person thinks your work is acceptable. Even if they didn’t make any suggestions, they help you share responsibility. 

Today, you can easily ask an AI for their opinion and get a decent answer. When you ask it to generate or review something, you are also psychologically attributing some of the outcome to it. 

This psychological attribution helps take pressure off your work. If it turns out badly, it wasn’t totally your fault. AI gave you a bad idea, or missed something during its review. This is useful because it helps you ease outside of your comfort zone.

The less useful part happens when you grow to rely on AI, and don’t have access to it. It’s more useful to remember that sometimes, you’ll need to do things on your own without relying on AI.  

Similarly, while you can blame AI in your mind, which helps you get out of your comfort zone, your customers or bosses will hold you responsible for the work. At the end of the day, AI can give you a gut check, but you are the decision maker. You will be held responsible for making a judgement.