I caught myself smiling. It was a late evening after an early morning. I should be feeling exhausted, but exhaustion was nowhere to be seen. I was feeling lighter and definitely joyful. The sweet sensation of a job well done was lifting me up and soon there was no other choice but to dance. Glowing with pride, I Iooked at my work: hours had gone into it, I slept on it, got another idea, I rewrote it. The fact that it all had been written by myself made me feel proud and powerful. This occasion called for a lovely cup of tea.

Oh, hold on... what's that? A notification popped up. "Make it better with AI". 

"Better"? Are you saying it's not good enough? My perfect moment of satisfaction and joy was ruined. The glow was gone; I filled up with doubt and felt stupid.

In this blog, I claim that using AI for all we write robs us of individuality, originality and spontaneity - and most importantly, of the sense of growth and achievement that is essential to mental health. Moreover, AI gaslights us to believe that without it we are never good enough. We wouldn't tolerate being constantly put down by a person, would we? Being put down by a robot is not any different in terms of the consequences for our mental health: "AI's always better" means "you're never good enough". 

Before you ask me if I have a problem with progress: no, I don't. I'm fine with technology. My mouse is not a real mouse and the laptop is not a cosy blanket on top of my lap.

But I do have a problem with where it's all leading. Is this what we'll be saying on our death-beds: "I didn't do any self-expression. Generative chatbots spoke on my behalf because it was better with AI. No one knew what words I liked using, no one knew what made me laugh and what made me go out of my way. I just kept clicking on whatever AI said. I never wrote anything from my heart. I never bared my soul. And I'm proud of it. That's a life well lived." 

The reason I feel so strongly about AI is that it plants doubt in our minds and coerces us to mask who we are. I just came out as autistic, after a whole long life of masking. And when I realised that the very successful masking unfortunately also means that throughout my life I lived as not-me, I cried. I was devastated. No amount of tears can change it, but I CAN warn others what constant masking does to you in the long run.

Due to my personal experience, I find it vitally important to articulate and express who you are, to communicate as your true self at every step, to believe that who you are is good enough. It really is what actually matters in life. If you have a look at my achievements (opera, cybersecurity, stand-up comedy, professional interpreting, book, awards), they are significant. Yet, to me, they feel like nothing because they were done by some masked person and not by the real me.

That's why I see red when I'm bullied by software to go and mask, to mask with AI. It is supposed to produce a better-looking piece of text. But AI is no Superman to save us from mistakes - it's more like Terminator, terminating our individuality, taking away our personal expression, homogenising language, preventing authenticity, forcing us into a one-size-fits-all. 

One-size-fits-all doesn't exist. One size fits one person, while millions of others end up pinched, squeezed or shapeless. This is true especially in self-expression: we are all different, with different background, different needs, different logic, different intentions, different sense of humour. 

That's how AI, the bully, the one-size-fits-all, is a silent killer of creativity and authenticity. Your own touch, your tone, leaving your mark become "incorrect". Taking the offer of easy summary disables your summarising skills (which you may to your dismay discover during speaking on a panel when you can't summarise what's being said live). The same happens to improvising, creating, and feeling proud of your achievement. 

I believe that the biggest issue with AI is not how it affects copyright and intellectual property, but how it secretly erodes our mental health: we feel we could never be good enough, we don't acquire more skills, we don't grow - and as a result we don't get to glow. So let's use AI just for the time-consuming, complex and tedious tasks - and let's not apply AI blindly to every bit of our lives.