OI vs AI: What Really Matters In The Age Of Artificial Output
The False Choice Stealing Our Well-being. And what OI means ...
Still Thinking About That Treadmill
I've been carrying those thoughts about pushing back against the endless need to be productive. That feeling of guilt when you are not doing? That pull between what the world wants (output) and what your own body needs?
Now, there is a new part to this. A big one. Artificial intelligence.
The Ultimate Output Machine
Think about AI. It is built for output. Processing data. Finding patterns. Getting results. Fast. Without stopping. It does not get tired. It does not have feelings. It aims for efficiency and results you can measure.
It feels like the perfect example of that outside pressure we feel.
The perfect productivity machine.
The Quiet, Tricky Pressure
And with AI getting developing so quickly (apparently), doing things only humans could do before... a new pressure arrives.
A quiet feeling that we need to keep up.
Be more like that.
Faster.
More efficient.
Always "on."
It feels like we are being offered a choice: become more like AI, or be left behind.
But this feels wrong, doesn’t it? Like a trick. A false choice.
We Are Not Bots
Because we are not AI.
We are organisms.
Living, sensing, feeling animals.
Our intelligence is something else.
It is organismic intelligence. The wisdom of the whole system. Not just the brain trying to be a supercomputer.
It is embodied intelligence. Knowing things in your gut. That sense you get about a person or situation you cannot explain in words.
The felt sense.
The body processing things and talking to you quietly.
It is the wisdom of the right brain, the side that works with intuition and sees the whole picture.
Ancient Knowing Runs Deep
And this organismic intelligence? It has a long history. Ancestral intelligence inheritance.
It is in our genes. Millions of years of us changing and adapting. Our need for sleep. For moving. For being with others. For times of rest and times of work. It is wired in. The basic way for a human animal to live well and last.
It is in our culture. The quiet wisdom passed down. How groups of people lived well together. The natural rhythms they followed. Ways of dealing with feelings and finding meaning. Ways of being human together that made sense for many, many years. Slow knowledge.
Our organismic intelligence works with body rhythms.
It puts together thoughts, feelings, and what the body senses.
It learns by living.
Its "output" is health, strength, wisdom, new ideas that come from rest, and connection.
Not just things done.
The Cost of the False Choice
Trying to be an AI bot in a human body is hard.
It makes us tired and less creative.
When we try to be always on, always producing like a machine, we ignore what our genes tell us about rest.
We push away our gut feelings.
We ignore our intuitive side.
We cut ourselves off from ways of being human that have worked for a long, long time.
Feeling burnt out. Worried. Empty. Like a brain floating around, not connected to a body.
This is the price.
It is what happens when we try to live a false choice.
When we say no to our deep, intelligent nature.
Listening to What AI Cannot Hear
We do not have to beat AI at its own game. We can refuse the false choice. We can lean into our organismic intelligence. Listen to what AI cannot hear because it does not have a body, does not have ancestors in the same way, does not have a felt sense:
• Your body telling you it needs a break.
• That quiet feeling that something is not right (or is right).
• The feeling of truly connecting with someone else.
• Feeling peaceful when you are outside.
• A new idea coming to you after you have rested.
• The deep strength from getting through hard times (like those who came before us did).
These are not problems.
They are our true abilities.
They are how we become really creative, make real connections, and find real wisdom.
What Value Really Means
In a world focused on AI output, our value is not about being more like a machine.
Our value is about being more fully, more truly human.
It is about being able to feel for others, to have new ideas that come from resting and living fully, to understand hard things with our intuition, to build real connections, to find meaning.
Let us choose not to live the false choice. Let us choose to listen to the organism.
To honour our animal selves.
To trust the deep, slow wisdom of those who came before us.
That is where our real strength, our ability to keep going, and our true well-being are found.
Notes to Selves
Thinking about this, it seems important to remember the pressure to just produce is now showing up in a new way with AI.
It feels like a choice between being a machine and being human. But this is not a real choice.
We are not robots.
We are complex, sensing, intelligent organisms shaped by a long, long history.
Our bodies give us signals.
Our intuition guides us.
The past is in us.
Listening to all of that is not being lazy.
It is smart.
It is where our real ability to create and contribute comes from.
Putting the organism first helps everything else.
Our value is not just in what we do, but in the richness of who we are.
Remember to just be sometimes.
I’ll publish an extended, more detailed version of this post over the weekend.
ps this article was inspired by the welcoming speech at NZ CreatorCon which I attended a few weeks ago, and in my reading of Steve Biddulph’s Wild Creature Mind (Amazon affiliate link - costs you nothing extra, earns me a tiny commission). Also most likely available at your public library - that’s how I read it.
Thank you, Sarb, for this timely reminder.
So important!