I’ve been wrestling with AI.

Should I use it? How should I use it? When should I use it? Am I using someone else’s work without giving them credit? etc.

I get frustrated when I go through an AI chatbot when I’d just like to talk to a human. That’s been particularly frustrating recently, as I struggle to get my blog sorted after changing my hosting service package.

My dilemma all came to a head recently with my wonderful daughter, a creative, who is completely opposed to AI. She saw that I was looking at an AI adapted recipe. It needed to be adapted so I could use ingredients my favourite person could have.

My dilemma

Our quite heated argument made me completely question how I use AI.

I read an article in a local paper citing AI as a key factor in society’s downward spiral. It was a very negative view. Some of the comments on the article were insightful, as people discussed how they used AI, and another mused about what an article taking a positive view of AI might look like.

As I kept going, I found a wonderful piece: a debate with AI about how it could be used.

I left the article both comforted and also uneasy as I considered how I use AI.

AI and critical thinking

Am I substituting my own critical thinking with AI?

In my consulting work, I use a secure AI tool to help me, like I would have used a team member in an engagement when I was working in my firm. I no longer employ people, so it fulfils that role.

I use Cellar Tracker to log my wine cellar, which, as my favourite person regularly tells me, grows much faster than we can ever hope to drink at!. They recently added AI to the App. I find it particularly useful to ask Cellar Tracker’s AI what wine would suit the meal we are having. I get 8 to 10 suggestions to choose from. It’s like having my own Sommelier. As with a Sommelier recommendation, I don’t always accept it.

Often, as I read a verse from the Bible, I have experimented with ChatGPT and asked it how I should apply the verse in 2026. In preparing this post I asked ChatGPT how it determined its responses. It was part of my questioning on how to use AI. Once again it reinforced the need not to suspend critical judgement, but instead to treat the responses as a perspective time to reflect on rather than rely on.

I think the latter example is the nub of the issue. Get the AI generated response and review it. I’d like to think that I do that critically and that the output is a product of that approach.

I also use it as an editing tool. I don’t have a copy editor, so I feel it tidies my writing. 

Sometimes I’ll ask AI to rewrite a piece and then compare the two. I tried that with a few posts. Bluntly the AI response isn’t the authentic me. I don’t see it as the way to use AI as it’s out put doesn’t represent the authentic me. I see at as different to using AI as a copy editor

For our last trip to North Queensland, I asked Chat GPT for recommendations on where we should go that was like Port Douglas, but A little quieter. It came back with a few options that I narrowed down through my own research and a few further questions. Once we settled on a location, Mission Beach, I then asked about accommodation based on what we liked, and it gave a couple of recommendations. I then looked at reviews of the various sites and settled on the delightful Nala Resort. I asked it about an itinerary, which it duly came back with. I have to say we largely ignored that once we arrived, but it did provide one.

I also know AI is not always right. I’ve caught it out more than once. I asked it about player qualification rules in the European Champions League, specifically why Arsenal ‘wonderkid’ Max Dowman wasn’t in a particular category. I already knew the answer, but it was a test. As I read the AI generated answer, I knew it was wrong. It was a salient reminder that, as the tool itself says, AI isn’t always right.

The AI horse has bolted

All of that said, the horse has bolted; AI is here, and it’s not going to go away. The dilemma for me is how to use it in a way that doesn’t diminish my critical thinking and still leads me to original thought.

I didn’t use AI in this post beyond using it as a copy editor

I see this as an important debate and I’d appreciate your thoughts and comments.