Bruce Schneier always has a deft way of simplifying what’s going on in the world. For example, I regularly mutter ‘security theater‘ when passing thru TSA. And he’s a great source for the thinking around cybersecurity overall.
Recently, I came upon an article of his about when to use AI for a task. This resonated with some thinking I had around AI (as in, the AI reviled for generative text, video, and image slop) and ideas around effort, friction, seams, skills.
Schneier brings the distinction down to: do you need to develop yourself or do you need to get shit done? If you need to develop a skill, then view the task as gym work – and do the work yourself. If you just need to get shit done, then view the task as plain work – and use genAI to help.
At work, if your job is to move a bunch of heavy things from one side of the room to another, you should use whatever assistive tech you have on hand: a wagon, a forklift… even an AI-powered robot. But at the gym, it makes no sense for that robot to lift weights for you. The point of weightlifting isn’t to move heavy things across the room; it’s to actually lift those heavy things. Source: Should You Use AI for a Task? Here’s a Simple Way to Decide (Schneier on Security):
“E” for effort
This view resonates somewhat with a thought I had about the effect of genAI on what we do and what we create. I feel that genAI has taken away ‘friction’ in what we do. In a recent Verge article, by the amazing Liz Lopatto, on Mark Zuckerberg’s empty vision of a AI future, Liz talks about a genAI-made motivational image someone she knew showed her. Her first thought was, ‘so?’ The feeling was that the image was not made by anyone, didn’t really contain something from a creator, and, to me, did not represent any effort on the part of the creator: isn’t the effort we fold into a creation the point?
A while back I listened to an amazing podcast episode on folks who were reporting back from SXSW 26. The discussion felt so philosophical. A few big themes emerged from listening to that. One of them was “friction.”
Feel the friction
One of the speakers on the episode was talking about taking notes long-hand. She was saying that the effort of writing by hand was so much better for her thinking and retention than if she’d typed it, or even recorded it and done some AI summary (and some wonder if even the physical resistance of pencil on paper is part of the cognitive effort).
In the gym v work, I find myself not trusting AI to do my writing. Oh, it’s fine for discussion, figuring out the arguments, brainstorming the flow. But I always feel better to do the writing I care about myself. The struggle to lay out the ideas, make a connection with the reader, come out much better for me if I do the writing myself. When I read generated writing, I instantly see ‘that’s not mine, that’s not me.’
For me, then, that friction is about ownership of the outcome. Removing the friction removes any needed thinking, removes putting yourself in the creation.
Do I have ‘work’ times that I punt to genAI. Yes. But those are low value writing, where me being part of the writing isn’t really necessary (for example, monthly summary of activities). Tho, I will say, I almost always edit further anything I get from AI that I have to then pass on to another. I tend not to just pass on genAI text unedited.
As an aside, the reason I enjoy building electronics is that I _have_ to do that, not some genAI. Oh, I do let the genAI do the coding, but under my direction, to help me make the hardware do what I want it to do. To me, the effort is in the soldering, putting it together, the connecting, the interaction. And when it is _mine_ I get so much satisfaction in the end result.
Effort as signal
What many folks rebel most against generated text or images is the desire for effort to be a signal for value, interest, importance. That’s the difference in making a meal, ordering out, or going to a restaurant. Each with less levels of involvement, each signaling something different. If you don’t get me, then go put effort into making a nice meal for a loved one. Watch them appreciate whatever effort you put into it.
An anecdote: My mother passed away earlier this year. A colleague of mine went thru the effort to send me a personal, hand-written card. I was so moved that I could not thank her via text message. I went and found a card, wrote my thank you, stamped it, and mailed it. My wife asked why I didn’t just text. I said that the effort in sending that card was a SIGNAL of how much I valued my colleague’s card and sentiment.
Signal vs silence
In a way, when there is no friction in creation, there is signal of lack of effort or importance or value. A hand-written card shows so much more than a text, even if the same text. I think the major push back on slop is not just that it’s overwhelmingly bad and swamping out genuine creations, but that the creations have no soul. No one really made them. No one really cares.
Going back to the gym-work from Schneier, when you care, you put in the effort and sweat. When you don’t care, then it doesn’t matter.
I don’t need to put my soul into a simple monthly bullet list report (tho I do end up editing it for spin haha). I do have to put my effort into a blog post like this one.
Liz Lopatto’s article on the Zuck had countless arguments against the frictionless worlds Zuck imagines. While Zuck thinks our hobbies and relationships can be managed by genAI, Lopatto rightly says that the effort we put into things like knitting, making cookies with our kids, relationships, all REQUIRE effort, friction, personal involvement.
Cognitive gym
I want to close out with an example of how friction is so useful. Back in my Nokia days, I had the good fortune to participate in many IDEO- and Nokia designer-led workshops. Key tools to help ideate were things like pipe cleaners (for our hands to think) and post-its. On the post-its, we were always instructed to put only one idea, not write a missive (and the post-its were the usual squares, not big sheets). Forcing us physically to contain ideas was a necessary friction for ideation discipline.
One other ideation tool I thoroughly enjoyed was to explain a concept in a haiku or short poem. When you have such a small space, you really distill things. Hm, I wonder if Twitter really lost its mojo when they removed the 160 characters limit (itself a constraint from heavily-used SMS)?
Summary
Bruce Schneier’s gym v work criteria for AI use kinda dovetails with my view of friction v friction-less creation. To Schneier (and Lopatto) ‘gym’ is about effort, the effort is the point, the effort is the signal.
In the past few months, I have been more aware of choosing to ensure my own writing is my own, the effort is the process and the signal and needed for my own thinking (gym). And where I don’t need it to be my own, I turn to genAI (work).
What do you think?
Image from Unsplash
