207 - Guest: Oliver Burkeman, Philosophy Writer, part 1

Artificial Intelligence and You

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .

Our relationship with time is dysfunctional. Here to help us explore possibly the most critical effect of AI on the pace of life is Oliver Burkeman, author of the best-selling self-help book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and former author of the psychology column “This Column Will Change Your Life” in The Guardian.

Most of us can attest to being severely overworked and with a shrinking amount of personal time left over. This is true despite the introduction into our lives of a huge amount of technology from the PC to the Internet. Why have tools like email, Google, and instant messaging not reduced our workload and stress? In fact, it’s not hard to believe that they are responsible for making those things worse. In which case, we must ask, what effect will unleashing AI – which accelerates everything it touches - have on our work life?

This is exactly the thought space that Oliver inhabits, and his work has made a major difference in my own life. Read Oliver's posts and subscribe to his newsletter at OliverBurkeman.com.

In this first half of the interview we talk about the parable of the rocks in the jar and how it’s a pernicious lie, the psychology of perceiving life as finite, and how technology has not changed our work stress and may be making it worse through induced demand.

All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines.

Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.