Are We Using AI as a Crutch Instead of a Coach?

 I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit recently. Every day, I see people turning to ChatGPT before they even pull out their notebook. Asking it to assist them in brainstorming, to correct their work, to make decisions that they could quite easily make on their own. And I think somewhere down the line, I started to wonder if we’re doing any better at anything, or if we’re simply doing better at asking the AI to do it for us.

The thing is: a crutch is something that catches you when you cannot stand by yourself. It’s a temporary thing until you heal. But imagine if you were to use it all the time! The muscle that you’re supposed to be strengthening just. doesn’t. I think that’s about where a lot of people are at with regards to AI.

The Illusion of Progress

I do know a guy who used the AI tool to write an entire research paper last semester. The paper was great. Really great, in fact. Scored an A. And the part of the story that kept him awake all night was the fact that he didn’t even know if he or she could write something similar on his/her own.

That is the subtle risk. AI is not perceived as cheating because it is so useful. It is perceived as efficiency. Smart work versus hard work. There is a difference between utilizing a resource to improve your skills, versus utilizing a resource to make it unnecessary to have said skills.

It seems like everywhere I go now. Students using it to help them with essays. People using it for all emails. Individuals using it to help with writing up journal entries in therapy sessions. And I am not judging — that’s all of our business at this point. But the reality remains: what happens to our thinking if we all are outsourcing our thinking skills?

The Nature of Coaching Primarily

A coach will not do the work for you. A good coach will ask you the tough questions. They will make you, or at least your brain, uncomfortable. They will force you to come up with the answers that you did not even know were there. They believe in you when you believe otherwise.

AI does the opposite. It gives you the answer right now. It strips away the struggle, the frustration, the brutal process of trying to determine things. And that process, that’s exactly where growth occurs.

Consider learning how to write an essay. The first attempts will always be dreadful. You look at the paper, write something clumsy, delete the text, try again. Your thoughts are not clearly articulated. Sentences are not connected. In the process, you manage to clarify what exactly you want to say.

Now, imagine all that being waved away. Simply enter a prompt, receive an essay. Yes, receive the grade. But did one receive an education in all that?

This clumsy process of wrestling with bad ideas — that’s not a bug in the learning process. That’s the point.

The Questions We’re Not Asking

When we go about utilizing the capability of AI, perhaps the first question we need to ask ourselves is, “Am I using this tool in order to assist me with something that I already have the capability of doing, or am I avoiding learning how to do something by utilizing this tool?”

Are we writing using AI support, or are we only editing AI-generated write-ups?

Are we using this tool for overcoming the problem of writer’s block, or are we using this tool so that we never experience the problem of writer’s block at all?

These are important distinctions. This one builds skills and capabilities. The other leads to their deterioration.


“I’m not saying that AI is bad, because it is an amazing tool,” Morton explains. “But tools are only as good as the hands using them, and if our hands forget how to work without the tool, we are in big trouble.”

The Creativity Crisis

“There’s another thing at play here. What happens when you ask AI for ideas is that it will provide the most statistically likely answer based on everything that AI has been fed. What that means is that AI will give a person the average of what already exists.”

Real creativity does not come from averages. It comes from the weird things your brain puts together at 2 AM. From the errors that can become something interesting. From your unique experiences that no one else has.

One of my friends shared that they would spend hours scribbling down story ideas in their notebooks. Most of it was terrible, but every now and then, a masterpiece would be born. They now rely on AI for story ideas. They get twenty of them instantly. However, none of them are theirs. They lack soul. They lack soul because they lack heart.

“The mess is where the magic lives. And we’re optimizing it away.”

Finding the Balance

What’s the solution then? I don’t think it’s giving up on AI altogether. We could just stop using calculators because we should be calculating long division problems in our head. But maybe we just need to think more about how we are going to use it.

What if we struggled first? We contained ourselves in front of the hard problem, the blank page, the tough decision. We gave ourselves time to struggle, to flail about in incompetence. Only then might we seek out the AI — and then only as a thought-sounding board.

It’s slower. It’s tougher. But here’s what those people using this method notice: Their early versions of work improve. Their thoughts are more unique and different. They’re exercising the muscle rather than watching it atrophy.

The Real Risk

“Here’s what frightens me most: a generation growing up with no experience of what it’s like to be, well, truly stuck. To take a problem long enough that you find yourself digging deep and trying something new and surprising yourself.”

From the The New Yorker StoryBundle Collection, “The BFG” by Roald Dahl, edited by Rebecca Mead

That is where the magic happens. Not in the quick solutions, but in the fight to locate them. Not in the flawless initial draft, but in the willingness to produce an awful one and improve it.

There was this professor at a university who had just begun handing out “no AI” exercises. It was not because he disliked technology in particular. He had noticed something disturbing: his graduates had never been able to write a real body of text outside of class. They could write a great prompt to the AI. Ask them to develop an argument by themselves, and nothing.

They are walking across the stage with their degree in hand, but without the skills that degree is supposed to convey. The article says they can do it. But can they?

The Decision-Making Process

Artificial intelligence can be many things. It can be a research aide, a brainstorming buddy, a proofreader, and even a code debugger. But it shouldn’t be a replacement for the thinking, the creativity, and the development that comes from us.

A crutch prevents a person from falling. A coach teaches one to run.

The choice is ours to make. Every time we type that prompt, we are making that decision, period. Are we using this opportunity for growth or avoiding growth?

What are we building or borrowing? The technology isn’t going anywhere. But the question remains: When we finally put down the crutch, will we be able to walk?

What are your thoughts on this? How are you balancing this in your own life? It is early in the conversation to be sure.

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