AI can do some amazing things, and I’m using it more and more frequently. However, it has a major limitation — it hasn’t lived your life.
Jay Acunzo worded this well in a blog post about his “Idea Impact Matrix” where he said:
AI is trained on internet content.
You are trained on the content of your life, and nobody else has access to that.
What you have to offer is unique from literally any other human that has ever lived. Your viewpoint on things has been shaped your entire life, and the perspective you have is slightly different than anyone else.
This is a big reason I spend so much time curating my notes in places like Obsidian (and now Tana). AI can surface a lot of great things, but those tools know about every book I’ve read, articles I’ve enjoyed, meetings with others, blog posts I’ve written — the more I put into it, the better the outcome will be.
I suspect AI will be able to replace that at some point, but that’s not very close yet. Even when it does, it’ll never be able to capture everything that has gone into shaping who I am today, and the same goes for you.
Nobody else has access to what you do, so use it well.
