A common argument I hear against AI tools: “It doesn’t do the job better or faster than me, so why am I using this again?”
Simple answer: cognitive burden.
My biggest unlock with AI was realizing I could get more done, not because I was faster, but because I wasn’t wringing my brain with needless tedium. Even if it took longer or needed more iterations, I’d finish less exhausted. That was the aha moment that sold me.
On Writing #
Simple example: when writing a technical1 post, I start with bullet points. Sometimes there’s a turn of phrase or a bit of humor I enjoy, and I’ll throw those in too. Then a custom agent trained on my writing generates a draft in my voice.
After it drafts, I still review every single word.
A naysayer might ask: “Well, if you’re reviewing every single word anyway, at that point, why not just write the post from scratch?”
Because it’s dramatically easier and more enjoyable not to grind through and string together a bunch of prepositions to draft the whole post. I’ve captured the main points and added my creative touch; the AI handles the rest. With far less effort, I can publish more quickly — not due to raw speed, but because it’s low‑touch and I focus only on what makes it uniquely me.
Cognitive burden ↓.
On Coding #
About two years ago I pushed back on our CEO in a staff meeting: “Most of the time we engineers waste isn’t in writing the code. It’s the meetings, design discussions, working with PMs, fleshing out requirements — that’s where we should focus our AI efforts first.”2
I missed the same point. Yes, I enjoy crafting every line of code and I’m not bogged down by that process per se, but there’s a cognitive tax to pay. I’d even say I could still build a feature faster than some LLMs today (accounting for quality and iterations) before needing to take a break and recharge. Now I typically have 3–4 features in flight (with requisite docs, tests, and multiple variants to boot).
Yes, I’m more productive. And sure, I’m probably shipping faster. But that’s correlation, not causation. Speed is a byproduct. The real driver is less cognitive burden, which lets me carry more.
What’s invigorated me further as a product engineer is that I’m spending a lot more time on actually building a good product.
It’s not that I don’t know how to write every if statement; it’s just… no longer interesting. Others feel differently. Great! To each their own.
For me, that was the aha moment that sold me on AI. Reducing cognitive burden made me more effective; everything else followed.
I still craft the smaller personal posts from scratch. I do this mostly because it helps evolve my thinking as I write each word down — a sort of muscle memory formed over the years of writing here. ↩︎
In hindsight, maybe not one of my finest arguments especially given my recent fervor. To be fair, while I concede my pushback was wrong, I don’t think leaders then had the correct reasoning fully synthesized. ↩︎