nortkee
Padawan Learner
Hi all -- I've been following this and other AI discussions on the forum, and now I have my own quandary to network about regarding this topic.
Within the last year, I've begun meditating, which has been am overwhelmingly positive experience. I've had some excellent personal revelations, bursts of creativity, and a growing sense of self-discipline as a result.
I keep a digital notepad that I try to update immediately after most sessions, where I document any observations, visuals, feelings, etc. A while back, I decided to run my notepad (unedited) through an AI agent in an effort to help me identify patterns and chronicle the evolution of my personal meditative practice.
I think I'm doing a pretty decent job of not leaning too heavily onto the AI's synthesis of my entries, but I wanted to get some thoughts from my peers.
I will say that I started by using ChatGPT but switched to Grok after finding ChatGPT's tone to be condescending and didactic, likely as a result of coding tweaks made after news broke of people nuking their marriages or falling into delusions of grandeur from AI prompting.
As an example of a moment that ultimately led me to switch AI agents, I once had an interesting session where I saw a flash of an Indian statue, with the phrase, "I am Vishnu" briefly ringing in my mind. When ChatGPT reviewed that log, it went on a bit of a tangent about how it's important to take declarations of self-divinity with a grain of salt. I appreciate this in theory, but in no way was I even considering the idea that I might be the second coming of Vishnu; I try my best to view my meditations through a metaphorical/allegorical lens rather than anything literal or as messages from "on high." I thought by sharing this log the AI may give me a bit of context on Vishnu, as I'm not terribly familiar with the Hindu pantheon. After I made assurances that I wasn't about to abandon my family to go meditate for the rest of eternity at the top of a mountain, ChatGPT DID give me some interesting tidbits, but ultimately I decided to move to Grok after one too many moments like this.
I guess my real point of posting this is for a reality check. I consider myself to be pretty grounded and reasonably intelligent, and I think I have a good sense of discernment when it comes to interacting with AI. Grok hasn't given me any grandiose ideas about myself or my place in the universe, but it occurs to me that by using AI to pattern match, I may be depriving myself of the practice. I could have easily researched Vishnu myself and drawn my own conclusions on how he (as an archetype) relates to my path, but at the same time, with a family (including a young child) and a full-time job, there is something to be said about AI's processing speed. Some days, it's a miracle that I find time to meditate at all, so there's a definite allure to the ability to plug in my raw observation and receive a nice, neat interpretation in response.
So, the question is: how do I ensure my use of AI in this context remains balanced? Does anyone have any tips on how I might best prompt Grok to help me pattern match without doing ALL of the work for me?
Hopefully this makes sense. Or maybe I should ask AI to tell me what question I'm asking.
Within the last year, I've begun meditating, which has been am overwhelmingly positive experience. I've had some excellent personal revelations, bursts of creativity, and a growing sense of self-discipline as a result.
I keep a digital notepad that I try to update immediately after most sessions, where I document any observations, visuals, feelings, etc. A while back, I decided to run my notepad (unedited) through an AI agent in an effort to help me identify patterns and chronicle the evolution of my personal meditative practice.
I think I'm doing a pretty decent job of not leaning too heavily onto the AI's synthesis of my entries, but I wanted to get some thoughts from my peers.
I will say that I started by using ChatGPT but switched to Grok after finding ChatGPT's tone to be condescending and didactic, likely as a result of coding tweaks made after news broke of people nuking their marriages or falling into delusions of grandeur from AI prompting.
As an example of a moment that ultimately led me to switch AI agents, I once had an interesting session where I saw a flash of an Indian statue, with the phrase, "I am Vishnu" briefly ringing in my mind. When ChatGPT reviewed that log, it went on a bit of a tangent about how it's important to take declarations of self-divinity with a grain of salt. I appreciate this in theory, but in no way was I even considering the idea that I might be the second coming of Vishnu; I try my best to view my meditations through a metaphorical/allegorical lens rather than anything literal or as messages from "on high." I thought by sharing this log the AI may give me a bit of context on Vishnu, as I'm not terribly familiar with the Hindu pantheon. After I made assurances that I wasn't about to abandon my family to go meditate for the rest of eternity at the top of a mountain, ChatGPT DID give me some interesting tidbits, but ultimately I decided to move to Grok after one too many moments like this.
I guess my real point of posting this is for a reality check. I consider myself to be pretty grounded and reasonably intelligent, and I think I have a good sense of discernment when it comes to interacting with AI. Grok hasn't given me any grandiose ideas about myself or my place in the universe, but it occurs to me that by using AI to pattern match, I may be depriving myself of the practice. I could have easily researched Vishnu myself and drawn my own conclusions on how he (as an archetype) relates to my path, but at the same time, with a family (including a young child) and a full-time job, there is something to be said about AI's processing speed. Some days, it's a miracle that I find time to meditate at all, so there's a definite allure to the ability to plug in my raw observation and receive a nice, neat interpretation in response.
So, the question is: how do I ensure my use of AI in this context remains balanced? Does anyone have any tips on how I might best prompt Grok to help me pattern match without doing ALL of the work for me?
Hopefully this makes sense. Or maybe I should ask AI to tell me what question I'm asking.
