There are two kinds of people when it comes to AI. The first group treats it like a magic wand, something that will make them rich beyond their wildest expectations, creative, productive, and enlightened without lifting a finger. The second group treats it like an extinction-level threat — a digital demon we’ve accidentally summoned.

The reality, at least in my day-to-day life, sits somewhere in the middle: AI can amplify you, dramatically even, but only if you’re already doing the things worth amplifying. If you’re not, it will mostly amplify noise.

Where It Actually Amplifies

For me, the obvious pain point was coding. I’ve been writing software for decades, and the upgrade is real: things that used to take a day now take an hour. Sometimes less. Not because the AI is “writing the code for me,” but because it compresses the boring and tedious parts — boilerplate, migrations, syntax lookups, doc digging, the kind of repetitive work that still eats brain cycles. It lets me keep my focus on architecture and interaction design, the places where the real leverage can make a difference. But I don’t outsource my thinking – I outsource the friction. The same type of benefits extends to other areas: automating operational tasks, gaining some time with summaries of calls and emails, or generating first-pass drafts for content or specs. None of these “amplified” tasks replaces judgment, though.

Research is another obvious example. Not the surface-level “give me three bullet points about X,” but deeper explorations that used to take half a day of tab-hopping. AI is very good at pre-processing information: narrowing down directions or suggesting variants I hadn’t considered. It doesn’t decide for me. It just expands my mental map so I can decide better. Brainstorming works the same way. I rarely accept the first idea, sometimes not even the twentieth, but the value isn’t the answer — it’s the acceleration, the compression of the journey. I can explore a dozen possible angles for a project in the same time that I previously needed to write a single outline. Planning is also the same. AI doesn’t magically produce a “perfect plan,” but it forces clarity by asking questions I might postpone or ignore.

What Can Go Wrong?

But here’s the part people don’t like to hear: there’s a cliff on the other side of this. Amplification cuts both ways. AI can absolutely help you get more done — but it can also pull you into a strange loop of managing the thing that is supposed to save you time. Managing the AI becomes a new task category. You start monitoring outputs, tweaking prompts, adjusting automation, debugging hallucinations. Suddenly the “assistant” has created an entire meta-layer of work. If you’re not careful, you end up working for your tools, not with them.

And if everything does go smoothly, there’s another danger: over-reliance. When something works well and works fast, it’s easy to stop thinking altogether. This is where the Calhoun mouse-colony analogy creeps in — that slow slide into comfort, into letting the environment carry you, into outsourcing not just labor but your own awareness. When AI becomes the actual space of your life, you risk becoming a very well-fed, highly entertained mouse with no real survival skills left.

So can AI really amplify you?

Yes — if you stay aware. Amplification is not a given; it’s something you get if you know what to ask. AI accelerates whatever direction you’re already moving in, whether it’s creative work, business building, or simply procrastinating more efficiently. It can be a great tool that removes friction, enhances your thinking, compresses time to completion, and gives you leverage you didn’t have before.

But it needs very clear boundaries, and you need to keep enough skin in the game to remain the master, not blend into the automation itself. The AI breakthrough is real. But so is its trap potential.

The trick is remembering that this thing works best when you’re already pushing — and when you stay grounded enough to keep steering the thing, instead of letting it quietly steer you.