Should You Use AI for a Task? Here’s a Simple Way to Decide

Bruce Schneier has a great post about separating “work” tasks from “gym” tasks when it comes to AI usage: At work, if your job is to move a bunch of heavy things from one side of the room to another, you should use whatever assistive tech you have on hand: a wagon, a forklift… even an AI-powered robot. But at the gym, it makes no sense for that robot to lift weights for you. The point of weightlifting isn’t to move heavy things across the room; it’s to actually lift those heavy things. The same analysis holds for any task an AI can do for you. If it’s work—if the task has to be done and no one cares how—then it’s fine to use AI assistance. But if the task is more like the gym, and how the task is done is at least as important, then it probably doesn’t make sense to use AI. He goes on to point out that convincing people to go to the non-AI “gym” is very difficult because the payoff isn’t as immediate as just having AI do stuff for you. But it is very, very worth it in the end: We do…