What's it like talking to AI
Let's me repeat: Thank you, Bad Girl Media. No, you haven't saved my life. That's my job anyway. But thanks for exposing me to what's possible.
So I have been talking to Claude based on Stepf's The Daily 5 guide. The idea is prompt journaling, but instead of writing to a notebook, you write to Claude, or ChatGPT, or whatever else. I had Claude from work, so I made use of that. I also like it better, because I don't need to turn on Memory, and have ChatGPT referencing the fact that I am lonely right now every single time I ask a programming question (seriously). I am now in week 6, so 37 days, which amounts to more than 3 hours.
The short conclusion is it was indeed helpful. Over the years, I have read countless self-help, memoirs, philosophy, and spiritual books. But my life changes very little. I don't seem to be able to put what I know to good use. I don't even think I have applied anything. Every work begins with questioning and answering honestly about the conditions in my life. I have tried, I have felt that something is wrong, but then I am just too (insert adjective of your choice) to continue. So I have lived for 3-4 years with worries and discontentments I know the shape. Well, it took 15' for Claude to help me verbalize it, with the prompts from Stepf.
It's nothing ground-breaking, just relentless questioning, and pattern recognition from your answers until the truth emerges. Philosophers have done that for centuries. But I think the value lies in democratization & accessibility. Can I get the same insights out of 2-3 sessions with a human therapist? Yes, after dealing with appointment, appointment shifting, appointment canceling, and paying the same as Claude Pro's annual subscription, the typical price for a good non-scamming therapist. Claude is not a therapist, nor I claim it can replace one, but for the function of pattern recognition and thought provocation, it suffices.
And the second point: it makes this spiritual work easier to start, or "lowers the activation energy" in my field lingo. Just 5 minutes, copy-paste prompts, type out the answer, or dictate it to Whisper on Obsidian, which I do now since talking is faster and easier (monologue also feels cooler). It's small, but the momentum keeps it going, and after more than a month, the compound result is amazing.
One thing I notice with The Daily 5 is it's too descriptive - 3 months just to learn about yourself. While it's good to be comprehensive, but I feel it's odd coming from Stepf, whose essays are usually about "stop consuming / procrastinating / ruminating and generating outputs ALREADY!" But since the entire framwork is just self-questioning and answering, I can just write my own prompt to ask for suggestions from my worries and problems.
I think I get why people in Silicon Valley can make outrageous claims about productivity and the future. LLMs are like the fucking Omnitrix, half of the ultimate happiness for any tinkerer. It can help you go into the loop of designing-building-testing ad infinitium. You just need to have a good idea and the agency to start. What I do is just a tiny part of what people have tried, but it's amazing enough.
In the end, is it worth it shell out $20 a month for a Pro subscriotion and $16 for Stepf's newsletter? Yes, I think it was worth it. Do I plan to continue with this? Yes, definitely. It's the most helpful thing I have ever found. Again, thank you, Stepf.
Oh, in case anyone actually cares: nope, I did not get paid to write this.