I miss the climb

Steve Jobs once described the computer as a bicycle for the mind. I have always loved that metaphor because it captures what computers used to feel like to me. A bicycle makes you faster, but you are still riding it. You still pedal. You still steer. You still feel the hill in your legs. The machine extends you, but the movement is yours. That is how computers felt for most of my life. When I built a website, edited a photo, wrote some code, or made something on a screen, the computer helped me go further than I could alone. But I still felt connected to the work. I still felt proud of it because, in a very direct way, I had made it. AI has complicated that feeling. It is not that AI is useless. It is obviously useful. Sometimes it is amazing. It can help me move faster than ever. But the feeling is different. I am still in the race. I am just no longer on the bike. I am in the team car now, following behind. I read the road. I call the strategy. I tell the rider when to push and when…