Drunk Interns, Lazy Brains and Knowing When to To use AI

This week we're kicking things off with a big question: is AI making us lazy? There's a study from MIT that suggests our brains might be outsourcing more than we realise. And with our brains not fully developing until around age 32, what does it mean that we're handing over so much cognitive work to AI tools before we've even finished cooking?To help us figure it out, we're joined by Florence Jumpp, a product leader who's been working in AI and machine learning since 2019. Florence has a background in experimental psychology, and she's built her whole AI career around solving problems rather than obsessing over the tech itself.Florence introduces us to her "drunk intern" framework. It's exactly what it sounds like. Think of AI as a capable but overconfident intern who's had a few too many. They'll absolutely get stuff done for you, but you wouldn't send them to the board meeting. And you definitely wouldn't have them work on your hardest problems.She also shares her VEER framework for deciding which tasks to hand off to AI: looking at a task's Value, Enjoyment, Effort and Risk to decide whether it's a good one to hand off to AI.In this episode, we cover:Why thinking of AI as a "drunk intern" helps you use it more wisely (and why Florence's is called Jack)The VEER framework for figuring out what to delegate to AI and what to protectCognitive offloading: why your brain has stopped taking notes in personal conversations tooHow Florence uses Zapier to never face a post-holiday email wall againWhy doing the hard thing still matters, and how to force yourself to sit with the blank pageThe positive feedback loop: using freed-up time to get even better at AI, not just filling it with more workWhy the people who think for themselves are the ones who'll stand outAbout our guest: Florence Jumpp is a product leader specialising in AI and machine learning, with a background in experimental psychology. She brings a neuroscience lens to how we should think about AI's impact on our brains and our work.Resources mentioned:Zapier (zapier.com) for building AI-powered automationsMIT study on AI and cognitive offloading