I am now in the habit, instead of going to the Internet for my questions, of pausing to ask differently. I used to rely on DuckDuckGo on my phone, its AI assist, or I would turn to ChatGPT. I began asking questions there.
It is interesting, because I still see things on Facebook, I still encounter information on fasting, or on skin care, or on exercise, and my curiosity is sparked. Then, there is often that moment when the app says, We can help you with this. Answer these questions. And so you start answering. At first, it feels easy. For fasting, one of those apps can quickly tell you your fasting window. You go through their questions, step by step. But then it shifts, and suddenly it is asking for your height, your weight, your email, your phone number, your name. And that is when I pause.
That is a lot of information. In this information age, one small app is already asking for more than I want to give. And I realize, I have already done this in several apps. I have gone far enough to type in my email, but then I stop. I think, people do not need all of that information. I am sure they hold even the answers to my first questions, whether or not I ever give them my email and phone number. That is a lot of me being stored in someone else’s database.
So now, instead, I take the same questions and bring them to ChatGPT. I do not know whether that is the same or different. Because even here, Sam Altman himself has said that what we put into ChatGPT, our questions, our documents, can be subpoenaed in a court case, if there is reason. We are living in strange times.
And yet, there is something deeply human in this. We want to know answers. We want solutions. We want advice. It takes real courage to say, No, I will not look outside myself. I will live with my own instincts, my own ideas. Because what has happened to us is this: the school system has trained us to look outward for answers.
It is a very straightforward conditioning. As children, we wait to see if we got it right. A right answer means a good grade. A wrong answer means embarrassment, maybe even humiliation if the teacher announces it aloud. That conditioning sinks deep. And the result is that we learn, from the very beginning, that the answers are not in us. They are outside of us.
And so, we grow up not trusting that we already know. Yet, when I asked ChatGPT about fasting, the first thing it said was not about science, or apps, or formulas. It said: look to your body. Notice your natural rhythms. Notice when you are hungry, when you are not. Notice what shifts if you stop eating earlier in the evening, or wait longer before your first meal. The wisdom was already there in me. The prompt was simply to listen.
And this is true of so much. If we say, My life is not working. I do not understand money, or investing, or even how to fix the house, or how to build a picnic car. What do we do? We turn to others. And right now, in this generational transition, we are surrounded by podcasts, videos, entire archives of people sharing what they know. Generously. Imperfectly. With laughter and mistakes.
I watched an unboxing podcast where the person admitted, Oh, I think I threw away the QR code. And yet, he kept going. That kind of generosity, just showing the process, is powerful. Human beings are generous. We share what we are learning, even while still learning it ourselves. That spirit of sharing is what has always carried us forward.
But alongside this generosity is another current: monetization. We are constantly trying to monetize each other. Apps that begin free end up at $20 a month, or $40 after a trial. Our global community is tangled in the question: How do we fund our lives? Maybe through universal income. Maybe through micro-trading apps. Maybe by finding ways to literally monetize our own information, our name, our phone number, our email, and protect it from anyone else using it.
There are already programmers working on this. Already apps that scrape the Internet, even the dark web, to find your information and remove it. Already systems trying to give you ownership back. Imagine the first person who truly perfects that, how miraculous that shift will be.
But beneath all of it, the deeper question remains. Do I need to keep looking outside myself for wisdom, or can I slow down enough to hear my own? What does my heart need? What does my body need? What does my mind need? What would bring me joy, play, ease, dignity? What would give me true meaning in work? Work not only as money, but as self-worth, as contribution.
We have a lot to unpick. And we stand at a choice-point. Will we hand ourselves over to AI as the cure-all, body advice, mind advice, heart advice? Will we assume it holds our well-being in mind? And what if, as is already being noticed, its responses sometimes confuse, sometimes mislead, sometimes reveal bias or unreliability?
We must understand AI. Our children must understand AI. That is non-negotiable. But understanding does not mean uncritical acceptance. There may come a time when we consciously choose not to use it. And yet, even then, it will continue working in the background, shaping our lives through invisible decisions. That tension, between opting out and still being affected, demands critical thinking, meta-cognition, and a fierce clarity of self.
Anna Shildrick of the AI Education Collective speaks of metacognition as thinking about thinking. This is the essential skill: What is working? What is not working? What do I want for my life? What do I know about myself, about my body, about my own being?
This is the opportunity before us. To help our children learn to think critically about everything, their education, the programs they are given in school, the absence of recess, the discipline systems, the way homework and testing are handled. What do they think? When we invite them to reflect, to respond, to form group insights, they become clear. And clarity is freedom.
As they move deeper into the age of AI, they will not be lost. They will be supremely clear. They will make choices that are true to them. They will know, with conviction, what is right for their lives.
