When Did We Stop Writing Our Own Words?

ChatGPT is not even half a decade old, yet somehow, it already feels like it holds the keys to my daily life.

I started my website just a month ago, and frankly, I know almost nothing about the technical side—Markdown files, Cloudflare, Substack, yada yada. I basically write my content and hand it over to Codex to do the heavy lifting. Upload this. Format that. Resize this image. Fix whatever I broke. I have a workflow documented, sure, but it is just so much easier to ask AI to do it.

Which made me stop and think: What do I actually do myself anymore?

I catch myself running the simplest emails through AI before clicking send. Which is ridiculous when I think about it. Before AI, I wrote entire academic papers. I wrote page after page of emails without a second thought. Now I find myself wanting to double-check a text to my son’s friend’s mom.

Does this sound weird? Too formal? Too blunt? Should I add an exclamation mark? Is that too many exclamation marks?

When did I lose the confidence to just… say things?

And apparently, I am far from alone. We have become remarkably comfortable handing AI all the little bits of thinking that used to simply be part of being a person.

The Five Most Mundane Things We Now Hand Over to AI

• Proofreading things that really do not need proofreading. Emails. Texts. Polite declines. Messages to acquaintances. Anything where we suddenly need reassurance that we sound like a normal human being.
• Thinking of basic ideas. What can I cook with these three things in my fridge? What should I pack for the weekend? What do I buy someone for their birthday?
• Reading things we do not feel like reading. Long work emails. School newsletters. Articles. Please read this and tell me what I actually need to know.
• Making messy things look organized. Notes become bullet points. Brain dumps become tables. Random thoughts become Markdown files.
• Planning things we could probably plan ourselves. To-do lists. Study schedules. Packing lists. Step-by-step instructions for tasks we have somehow survived doing for years.

What Do I Use It For?

Texts. Emails. Spelling and grammar checks. Images. My website. Research. And a ridiculous number of visual stories and instructions for my son.

For the big things, AI genuinely feels like a superpower. I can build and manage a website despite barely understanding what is happening behind it. I can turn an idea into something real without first spending six months learning the technical skills to make it happen.

I do not want to give that up.

But somewhere between “Help me build a website” and “Does this text message sound okay?”, I think there is a line worth noticing.

Because efficiency is wonderful.

I just do not want to become so efficient that I forget how to trust my own words.