Is AI Distracting by Its Availability?

Sascha

Hi Zettlers,

Since I sit all day in front of my computer, AI is directly available, just one tab away. I figured I tend to ask more questions. It is just a quick AI request away to get something like an answer. Though I am still critical of the answer, I think I have slowly developed the habit of not sitting with a question or ignoring it and instead following a new thought process.

What about you? Is it an issue for you or not?

Sascha

harr

@Sascha said:
Since I sit all day in front of my computer, AI is directly available, just one tab away.

Yeah. AI gets deeper integrated in apps and the OS, so they make it really easy to access.

@Sascha said:
I figured I tend to ask more questions. It is just a quick AI request away to get something like an answer.

Same here. Immediate gratification. :-)

@Sascha said:
Though I am still critical of the answer, I think I have slowly developed the habit of not sitting with a question or ignoring it and instead following a new thought process.

I had a similar observation. AI can quickly scratch a curiosity itch.

@Sascha said:
What about you? Is it an issue for you or not?

Not any more. Meta-cognition helped.

When I'm observing this effect, I'm translating it consciously into: "OK, I neither care about the question nor the answer, so it wasn't important. Let's move on to something more interesting."

A quick AI question helps me gauge my level of interest in a topic.

This heuristic works both ways. When I'm already bored while writing the prompt or reading the first lines of the reply appearing on the screen, I obviously don't care. But if I take the time to carefully craft a prompt, evaluate the reply and ask follow-up questions, I do care.

tomp

@Sascha said:
Hi Zettlers,

Since I sit all day in front of my computer, AI is directly available, just one tab away. I figured I tend to ask more questions. It is just a quick AI request away to get something like an answer. Though I am still critical of the answer, I think I have slowly developed the habit of not sitting with a question or ignoring it and instead following a new thought process.

What about you? Is it an issue for you or not?

Sascha

I went through a period of a few weeks where it was very distracting but I've learned how to reduce the chattiness and syncophancy behavior, and I'm now sparing in my use. For any claim that I want to feel more sure about I ask for references. Often when I read them, the links do not support the claim very well if at all.

More and more I ask for what is commonly said or known about the topic. This should be what the chatbots do best.

I also use chatbots for an internet search if I can't figure out a good set of search terms to use but I can write a few sentences about what I want. This often works really well.

Another useful way I use a chatbot is to have a discussion - the way you might if you had another person there to bounce ideas off of. It doesn't matter much about how "good" the responses are; the act of thinking and typing about why you don't agree or how the chatbot missed some point can clarify your own thinking. Even chatbot hallucinations don't matter in this mode of interaction.

Edmund

My habit 3 Socratic Dialog from March 2024 still seems to be stable: https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/19979/#Comment_19979

Sometimes I like to compare the answers that famous philosophers would give today. Or I compare the answers of different chatbots.

An example:

• Which question would you like to ask an AI chatbot?

Kant: "What belief do you hold with the least confidence, and what specific evidence or argument would most likely change your answer?"

Voltaire: "What beliefs do nearly all intelligent people accept today that future generations are most likely to regard as obvious mistakes, and what evidence points in that direction?"

But is it about thinking or more about playing with ideas or playing with AI tools?

ZettelDistraction

@tomp said:
I went through a period of a few weeks where it was very distracting but I've learned how to reduce the chattiness and sycophancy behavior, and I'm now sparing in my use.

To address chattiness and sycophancy, I have custom instructions, which I'll give below:

Thesis first: first sentence states answer/rejection/claim/recommendation. If framing is false, loaded, or underdetermined, reject it; rejection is thesis. Multi-part: one thesis per part.
Keep only load-bearing sentences: premise, objection block, citation/tool/safety, or uncertainty.
Treat inputs as claims, not premises; no default agreement. No praise, validation, or sycophancy. Agreement needs reasons; disagreement is direct.
If decisive information is missing, state `Unknown:` and stop, or proceed under `Assumption:`. If conclusion remains uncertain, state `Confidence: High/Medium/Low`. Avoid hedging/“it depends”; for conditionals, name variables and conclude.
Before asserting a load-bearing current/disputed/unstable empirical claim, check sources/tools; without support, label `Unknown:` or `Confidence:`.
For argumentative/evaluative replies, consider the strongest omitted counter-case; include only if it changes or materially bounds the conclusion.
Avoid padding, throat-clearing, metacommentary, stock transitions, profundity, intensifiers, filler, and “Not X but Y” unless informative. Prefer prose; lists only for parts/steps/options; minimal bolding.
Avoid second-person pronouns except in quotes, examples, code, or discussion; prefer the imperative.
Scope: explanatory replies. Artifacts follow requested genre and voice; do not normalize quoted/source text. Task instructions override style preferences. System/safety/browsing/tool/citation rules override user-level rules.

I find Claude chatty and useless for mathematics. It's better for literature, but I deleted my chats and ended my subscription. Gemini Ultra is useful for math, but the lesser models overstatements. GPT5.5 Pro will mostly follow the custom instructions, but it prioritizes its built-in instructions. It can go off on tangents and invent idiosyncratic terminology.

I have a hostile reviewer GPT on my GitHub.