August 27, 2026

Are We Outsourcing Who We Are?

I use AI a lot. Over the past few years, it has become an incredibly valuable tool for me, particularly when it comes to research. It allows me to go deeper, pull information together faster and accomplish things that would once have required several people and a considerable amount of time.

I’m not interested in making technology wrong. That would be missing the point entirely.

What I am interested in is what happens when we stop using technology as a tool and slowly begin allowing it to do something much more important for us: think.

I’ve noticed this particularly with writing. There are people I’ve known for years who are genuinely talented writers. I know their voice. I know how they communicate and how they think. And now I’ll read something they’ve published and immediately recognize that it isn’t really them. The words are polished, the structure is there, but somewhere along the way their voice disappeared.

That raises a much bigger question than whether somebody used AI to write an article.

Are we unintentionally outsourcing our identity?

Social media has already been moving us in this direction for years. Algorithms learn what gets our attention and give us more of it. We search for something once and suddenly our feed is filled with it. Our existing beliefs are reinforced, our confirmation biases get stronger, and unless we consciously seek another perspective, we can easily begin believing that what we are seeing represents reality.

AI takes that conversation another step further because now we can ask technology not only what information we should consume, but what we should say and even how we should say it.

Five things worth considering

1. Use technology as a tool, not as your identity.
   AI can make you faster and more productive, but efficiency shouldn’t come at the cost of your own thinking.
2. Pay attention to what you’re consuming.
   Your feed isn’t neutral. Algorithms are designed to give you more of what keeps you engaged, not necessarily what challenges you or helps you grow.
3. Protect your own voice.
   Your experience, perspective and way of expressing yourself are increasingly valuable precisely because technology can make everyone sound competent.
4. Create space without a screen.
   Walk. Read an actual book. Sit outside. Spend time with people. Give yourself enough quiet to hear your own thoughts before another voice fills the space.
5. Keep asking, “Is this actually me?”
   Does what you’re creating, consuming and pursuing represent your values and what matters to you, or are you responding to what the world keeps putting in front of you?

This may become particularly important as AI gets better.

If anybody can generate a reasonably good article, presentation, image or piece of content in seconds, simply producing something polished won’t differentiate us anymore. What will differentiate us is what we bring to it: decades of experience, perspective, judgment, creativity, curiosity and humanity.

That is where I think self-mastery becomes even more important.

Technology isn’t going away, nor should it. I’m excited about much of what AI makes possible, and I intend to keep using it. But I also want to remain conscious enough to recognize when a useful tool starts becoming a substitute for something I should be doing myself.

Every once in a while, get out of the feed. Put the phone down. Go for a walk, get outside, take your shoes off and stand on the ground if that works for you.

Then ask yourself a simple question:

Is this truly who I am, or am I being directed?