Years ago, when I first started freelancing, I sat in front of my computer on a Wednesday night, staring at a document. This was the third time I’d revised the same paragraph.

He was one of my earliest clients. Looking back now, I know the problem wasn’t just with that client.

I was just starting out and charging very little. How little? My thinking was: as long as I’m cheap enough, no one will say no. So I priced myself lower than everyone around me.

He came to me with a small project. Not big, maybe two hours of work. I quoted a price, he agreed, and we started.

Then that “two-hour project” dragged on for a week.

Not because what he gave me was complicated. It was because he kept asking for changes. After one version: “Can you change this a bit?” After another: “Can you change this a bit?” After another: “Just one more thing” — I can’t remember how many times. Sometimes it was just moving a word. Sometimes it was formatting. Sometimes it was something he’d said before, but he forgot and asked me to change it back.

Now when I encounter similar situations, I write “includes two rounds of revisions, additional changes billed hourly” in the quote upfront. But back then, I didn’t know any better. I just kept revising.

I wasn’t sure if he really needed that many changes. I later figured he probably just thought “I paid, so I have the right to keep asking.” And my price was so low it made him think “this person is easy to use.” I later nicknamed him “Mr. Haggler.”

I was just starting out and didn’t dare say “no.” I thought the customer was always right — if they wanted changes, I should make them. And he paid — even if it wasn’t much. Every time I wanted to refuse, a voice in my head said: “What if he doesn’t come back? What if he leaves a bad review?” I was afraid of losing this client, even though he paid so little.

Now I’d say directly: “This revision is outside our agreed scope. I can do it, but it needs a new quote.” It still feels uncomfortable saying it, but at least I won’t let a two-hour project drag into a week anymore.

He wasn’t the client who paid the most. He paid the least. But during that period, he took up most of my time.

A Pattern That Confused Me

Later I took on more clients and slowly noticed an uncomfortable pattern: in the projects I worked on at the time, the lower the quote and the vaguer the scope, the more likely there would be repeated revisions and extra demands.

But looking back now, I can’t blame everything on the clients. That client did keep making new requests, but I also never clarified from the start how many rounds of revisions were included, what counted as new work, or when I’d respond to messages. I traded a very low price for the collaboration, then expected the other party to automatically understand boundaries I hadn’t spoken aloud. That was unrealistic.

What I was really selling wasn’t just two hours of work — it was a vague promise: “As long as you keep making requests, I’ll keep cooperating.” The lower the price, the more afraid I was to refuse; the more afraid I was to refuse, the easier it was to accept things outside the scope. In the end, a task that should have taken two hours got scattered across a week of messages, revisions, and rework.

I later realized that price does affect client selection, but price alone isn’t everything. What really determines whether a collaboration is healthy is whether price, scope, revision count, response time, and acceptance criteria are all clearly defined at the same time.

Now when I take on a new project, the first thing I do isn’t discuss price — it’s confirm these details. If a client can’t clearly articulate what they want, I help them clarify their needs first, then quote.

Price Is Part of the Filter

Price isn’t just about how much I charge. It also affects who’s willing to come to me, how they evaluate the work, and how both sides initially understand the scope of collaboration.

When I priced myself very low, I not only reduced my income but also often had no bandwidth left for requirement confirmation, project management, and revision control. To keep clients, I’d subconsciously accept more demands, which actually made the collaboration more chaotic.

I later understood that price can help filter clients, but only when combined with clear scope, revision counts, communication methods, and time boundaries can it truly improve collaboration quality.

Now when I quote, I first calculate how many hours the project actually needs, then make sure the price covers at least my time cost, communication cost, and revision cost. I no longer lower the number just to “not get rejected.”

The Period When I Didn’t Dare Raise Prices

I understand why many people don’t dare raise prices, because I went through the same thing.

I thought low prices were safer. Low prices would let me get more orders and not get rejected for being “too expensive.” Low prices were the “cautious,” “pragmatic” choice.

But honestly, there was another reason: I wasn’t sure if I was worth a high price. Charging high felt like “claiming” I was good, and I wasn’t that confident.

Low prices were a “safe” choice, but the cost was attracting client after client who left me exhausted.

Later I decided to raise prices. Significantly. Every time I typed that number in a quote email, I felt uncomfortable. I prepared for the worst — everyone rejects, work decreases, forced to lower prices.

But the worst didn’t happen. Some people did reject. But the people who rejected were exactly those I didn’t want to work with anyway. The ones who stayed were easier to work with.

My workload decreased, but my income increased. The daily experience was completely different.

Now when clients message me at midnight, I don’t first judge whether they’re difficult. Instead, I look at the collaboration agreement: Did I promise instant replies? Is this revision within the original scope? If not, I explain it’s new work and provide new timeline and pricing. Many conflicts aren’t solved by endurance — they’re solved by stating the rules earlier and more clearly.

After Raising Prices

Mr. Haggler was the most draining client I’d ever had. But he also taught me the most important lesson.

He showed me the cost of low prices, and he finally gave me the courage to charge a price I myself thought was “a bit high.”

But after raising prices, I didn’t just change the number. I also started writing out scope, revision counts, and feedback methods before quoting. Before I’d say “this part can be adjusted,” I later wrote explicitly: “Quote includes two rounds of text revisions; new directions or structural changes require re-evaluation.” What really improved the collaboration experience wasn’t just the price increase — it was that I finally started writing out the boundaries.

What Mr. Haggler taught me wasn’t just “you should raise prices.” More importantly, I finally understood that pricing is only part of the collaboration. What also needs to be priced is my time, revision counts, response speed, judgment, and scope of responsibility.

So now when someone asks me if they should raise prices, I don’t just answer “yes.” I ask first: Do you know what you’re actually delivering? Which boundaries haven’t been written out? And is the price you’re quoting in exchange for a clear project, or for a collaboration you don’t dare refuse?

I’ve been asking myself these questions since that Wednesday night years ago, and I’m still asking them now. Price can filter clients, but clear boundaries are what truly filter out people suitable for long-term collaboration.

The Client Who Paid the Least Demanded the Most. I Thought These Were Two Separate Things. was originally published in Activated Thinker on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Existential Crisis of a Writer in the AI Era

If you are a writer on Medium, or anywhere on the internet for that matter, you already know the dark cloud that has been hanging over our heads since 2023.

I remember the exact moment the panic set in. I was staring at a blinking cursor, trying to craft the perfect 1,500-word essay on productivity. It was going to take me about four hours of deep research, outlining, drafting, and editing. Out of sheer frustration, I opened a popular AI chatbot, pasted my outline, and typed: “Write a comprehensive, engaging 1,500-word article based on this outline.”

In exactly 14 seconds, the machine spit out a perfectly structured, grammatically flawless, and highly readable article.

My stomach dropped. If a machine could do in 14 seconds what took me four hours, what was my value? Within months, the freelance writing market was flooded. Clients who used to pay me $150 per article were suddenly expecting them for $20, or worse, just generating them themselves. The golden era of getting paid premium rates simply to “produce words” was dead. AI had turned writing into a commodity.

I had two choices: quit and go back to a soul-crushing 9-to-5, or pivot.

I chose to pivot. I stopped selling “words” and started selling “results.” I transitioned from a struggling Medium writer to the owner of a highly profitable, fully automated Local SEO Agency. And the secret weapon that made this possible, the engine that allows me to charge local businesses triple my costs while doing almost zero manual work — is a white-label SEO automation platform called Rocketito.

Here is the exact, ultra-detailed blueprint of how I survived the AI apocalypse, how I use Rocketito to automate everything, and how you can replicate this incredibly lucrative business model.

The Pivot: Why Local Businesses Are Your Golden Ticket

While writers were fighting over pennies on content mills, I looked outside the Medium bubble and saw a massive, bleeding-neck problem in the local business sector.

Local businesses — roofers, cosmetic dentists, personal injury lawyers, HVAC companies, and boutique real estate agencies — are desperate for online visibility. They know they need SEO. They know they need to publish consistent, highly optimized, keyword-rich content on their websites to rank on Google and beat their local competitors.

But here is the catch: Traditional SEO agencies charge them $2,000 to $5,000 a month, which is completely out of their budget. On the flip side, the business owners don’t have the time to learn SEO, nor do they want to mess around with AI prompts. They just want the phone to ring.

I realized I could position myself in the middle of this gap. I could offer a “Done-For-You Local SEO Content System” that was highly affordable for them, but yielded massive profit margins for me.

The only problem? I am one person. I cannot manually research, write, format, and publish 40 high-quality SEO articles a month for 10 different local clients.

That is when I discovered Rocketito.

Enter Rocketito: The Ultimate White-Label SEO Automation Engine

Rocketito is not just another AI text generator. It is a comprehensive, enterprise-grade SEO content automation platform built specifically for agencies and resellers. It doesn’t just write the text; it handles the entire SEO lifecycle.

Here is exactly what Rocketito does for me on autopilot:

1. Deep SEO Research: It analyzes the top-ranking pages for my client’s target local keywords and extracts the semantic entities, LSI keywords, and structural requirements needed to outrank them.
2. Content Generation: It writes highly optimized, long-form, engaging articles that actually read well (because I use my Medium writing skills to guide the tone).
3. Direct CMS Publishing: This is the killer feature. Rocketito integrates directly with WordPress and other CMS platforms. Once the article is generated, Rocketito automatically publishes it directly to the client’s website, complete with H1/H2/H3 tags, meta descriptions, slug optimization, and featured images.

I literally do not have to log into my clients’ websites to copy-paste content. Rocketito does the creation and the publishing.

But the absolute best part? It is 100% White-Label.

The White-Label Illusion: Building Your “Invisible” Agency

When you sell a service to a local business, perception is everything. If you tell a local dentist, “I use an AI software to write your blogs,” they will feel cheated and refuse to pay premium prices.

This is where the Rocketito Agency Plan changes the game entirely.

Because Rocketito is a white-label platform, I can strip away all of Rocketito’s branding and replace it with my own agency’s logo, colors, and domain.

• The reports I send to the clients have my branding.
• The dashboards they see have my branding.
• The automated emails they receive come from my agency.

The client has absolutely no idea that Rocketito exists.

To them, I am a premium, high-end SEO consultant who has a massive, dedicated team of researchers and writers working tirelessly in the background to dominate their local market. I am selling the result and the relationship, while Rocketito handles the fulfillment.

The Economics: How I Charge Triple (or More) and Keep the Margin

Let’s get to the part you really care about: the money. This business model is built on extreme arbitrage. I am buying automated SEO fulfillment at wholesale prices and selling it at premium retail prices.

Here is the exact financial breakdown of my business model:

My Cost (The Fulfillment): By subscribing to the Rocketito Agency Plan, my cost to automate the SEO content creation and direct publishing for one client website is roughly $49 per month. That covers the AI processing, the SEO research, the formatting, and the direct CMS publishing.

My Revenue (The Pricing Strategy): I do not compete on price; I compete on value. I package this service into monthly retainers. Because local businesses value leads over blog posts, they are happy to pay for the outcome.

• The Starter Package ($497/month): 4 SEO-optimized articles, researched and auto-published to their site.
• The Growth Package ($997/month): 8 articles, plus localized landing page optimizations. (This is exactly double my base price, and 20x my cost).
• The Dominance Package ($1,497+/month): For high-ticket niches like lawyers or roofers. 12+ articles, aggressive local keyword clustering, and priority publishing. (This is triple my base price, and 30x my cost).

The Profit Margins: Let’s look at a conservative scenario. I land just 5 local clients on the $497/month plan.

• Total Monthly Revenue: $2,485
• Total Rocketito Costs (5 sites @ $49): $245
• Net Monthly Profit: $2,240

Now, let’s scale it. If I have 15 clients on a mix of the $497 and $997 plans, I am generating roughly $10,000 a month in revenue. My software cost to fulfill all of that? Less than $750.

I am keeping over 90% of the revenue as pure profit. And because Rocketito handles the creation and the publishing, my actual daily workload is maybe 30 minutes per client to check the dashboard, ensure the tone is right, and send a quick email.

Why Medium Writers Have an Unfair Advantage in This Game

You might be thinking: “Can’t anyone just buy Rocketito and do this?”

Technically, yes. But as a Medium writer, you have a massive, unfair advantage over the average “marketing bro” trying to sell SEO.

1. You Understand Structure and Retention: AI can write text, but it often writes boring, repetitive walls of text. Google’s algorithms heavily weigh “Time on Page” and user engagement. Because you write on Medium, you know how to craft a killer hook, use short paragraphs, add compelling H2 and H3 subheadings, and keep the reader engaged. You can feed these structural rules into Rocketito to ensure the AI output is actually readable and engaging.
2. You Know How to Tell a Story: Local businesses need to connect with their community. A robot writes: “HVAC services are important for your home.” A writer writes: “There is nothing worse than waking up to a freezing house in the middle of a January snowstorm…” You know how to inject empathy and storytelling into the prompts, making the AI output feel human.
3. You Are Already Comfortable with Content: You aren’t intimidated by a blank page or a content calendar. You already speak the language of the internet.

You are not just a software user; you are an Editor-in-Chief. Rocketito is your printing press, but you are the one directing the editorial vision.

Step-by-Step: How to Launch Your White-Label SEO Agency Today

If you are ready to stop trading your time for pennies and start building a scalable, automated agency, here is your exact roadmap.

Step 1: Get the Infrastructure

Go to Rocketito and sign up for the Agency Plan. This is non-negotiable. You need the white-label capabilities and the direct CMS publishing integrations to make this business model work seamlessly. Set up your agency name, design a simple logo, and configure your white-label dashboard.

Step 2: Pick a High-Ticket Local Niche

Do not target local coffee shops or small boutiques; they don’t have the margins to pay you $497+ a month. Target businesses where one single new customer pays for your entire monthly fee.

• Personal Injury Lawyers (One case = $10,000+)
• Cosmetic Dentists (One implant = $5,000+)
• Solar Panel Installers (One job = $20,000+)
• Roofing Companies (One roof = $15,000+)

Step 3: The “Audit” Cold Outreach

Don’t just ask for a meeting. Provide upfront value. Use a tool to check a local business’s website and see what keywords they are missing. Send them a personalized Loom video or email:

“Hi [Name], I was searching for [Service] in [City] and noticed your competitor [Competitor Name] is ranking above you because they are publishing localized SEO content twice a month. You aren’t. I run a specialized SEO content system that automatically researches, writes, and publishes this exact content directly to your website to help you capture those local leads. I’d love to show you how we can replicate your competitor’s strategy for a fraction of the cost. Open to a 5-min chat?”

Step 4: Onboard and Automate

Once they agree to the $497 or $997/month retainer, get their WordPress login credentials. Plug their site into your white-labeled Rocketito dashboard. Set up the target local keywords, configure the publishing schedule (e.g., every Tuesday and Thursday), and let the software run.

Step 5: Collect Retainers and Scale

Every month, Rocketito automatically generates and publishes the content. You send a white-labeled report showing the articles published and the traffic growth. The client is thrilled because they are seeing results without lifting a finger. You collect your $497, pay your $49 Rocketito fee, and pocket the difference.

Rinse and repeat until you hit the moon.

Conclusion: Stop Competing with the Machine, Start Commanding It

The narrative that “AI is killing writers” is a self-fulfilling prophecy for those who refuse to adapt. If you insist on being a commodity text-generator, the machines will absolutely replace you.

But if you elevate your position from “writer” to “strategic growth partner,” AI becomes the greatest leverage you have ever experienced.

You no longer need to stare at a blinking cursor for 8 hours a day. You no longer need to beg clients for net-30 payments for a single blog post. By leveraging the white-label automation of Rocketito, you can build a highly profitable, scalable agency that serves local businesses, dominates local search results, and pads your bank account, all while you sleep.

The tools are here. The local businesses are desperate for help. The profit margins are waiting to be claimed.

Stop writing for pennies. Start automating for profits. Head over to Rocketito right now, grab the Agency Plan, and build your invisible SEO empire today.

Artificial Intelligence, Writing, SEO, Entrepreneurship, Productivity

How I Survived the AI Apocalypse as a Medium Writer was originally published in Activated Thinker on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For the first 12 days, Pinterest sent my Medium article exactly 38 clicks.

Thirty-eight. I kept refreshing the stats page, half-convinced this only worked for other people.

Eleven weeks later, that same article had passed 21,400 views. About 16,900 of them came from Pinterest. It still gets a few hundred visits every week, and I haven’t touched it since.

I don’t have a big following. I’ve never shown my face online, and I never paid for an ad. What I had was a boring routine and a reason behind every pin I posted.

Here’s the whole thing, including the parts that didn’t work.

Why I stopped waiting for Medium to send me readers

Medium can be generous. Some stories get picked up and land in front of thousands of people. But you can’t plan around that. I’d publish something I was proud of, watch it sit at 40 views, and have no idea what I’d done wrong.

I wanted a second source of readers that I could control. It couldn’t need followers, and it couldn’t ask me to talk to a camera.

Pinterest fit. It works like a search engine, not a social feed. Someone types “budget for beginners,” and Pinterest shows pins that match. If your pin matches, it gets found. Whether you have 12 followers or 12,000 barely matters.

A quick word about money, since people always ask. Medium pays writers based on how long paying members spend reading your story, not on raw views. Most people who click over from Pinterest won’t be members. So I treat Pinterest as a way to get more readers and build a body of work. Some of those readers do sign up. Medium also changes its Partner Program rules now and then, so check the current details on their site.

Step 1: Pick one narrow topic

The examples below use budgeting, because it’s easy to picture. Swap in your own topic.

“Money tips” is too broad. “How to budget when your income changes every month” is better. A good test is whether you can picture the exact person typing that phrase into a search bar.

Then keep everything on that one topic. Your article, your Pinterest boards, your pins. When it all points the same direction, both platforms figure out who to show your work to much faster.

Step 2: Find the exact phrases people type

Before I made a single pin, I spent one evening on keywords. It was the most useful evening of the whole project.

I used two free things. The first was Pinterest Trends, which shows what people are searching for and when interest usually peaks. The second was the Pinterest search bar itself. Type your topic in, and it suggests what people search next. Those suggestions are real searches, not guesses.

I wrote down 23 phrases and picked the five that best matched my article. Longer phrases worked better than short ones. “Simple budget for beginners paid every two weeks” has fewer searches than “budget,” but far fewer competitors too.

Two things I learned about US and UK readers:

• Wording changes. Americans say “paycheck” and “biweekly.” Many people in the UK say “payday,” “monthly salary,” or “fortnightly.” I used both styles in different pins.
• People plan early. Seasonal topics start climbing a month or two ahead. A “holiday budget” pin posted in December is already late.

Step 3: Write one article, then make lots of pins for it

I wrote one article and treated it as the anchor. Then I designed pins for it, each with a different headline and angle, all pointing to the same link.

For a budgeting article, that might look like:

• How to start a budget when you live paycheck to paycheck
• The 50/30/20 budget, explained in plain English
• A simple monthly budget you can set up in 20 minutes

Same article, three different doors into it.

A few pin basics that made a difference:

• Use a vertical image, 1000 by 1500 pixels. Canva’s free version handles this fine.
• Keep the text big and the background plain. If you can’t read it on a phone held at arm’s length, it’s too small.
• Put your main phrase at the start of the pin title.
• Write a short description in normal sentences. Skip the pile of hashtags.
• Set up 6 boards with clear, searchable names, and save each pin to the most relevant one first.

The first two weeks were quiet

I posted 6 new pins a day for 45 days. That’s about 270 pins.

Doing that by hand every day would have burned me out. So I batched it. One Sunday session of around 90 minutes gave me roughly 40 pins for the week. Pinterest has a built-in scheduler, and I set most pins to go out in the evening hours in the US and UK.

The first 12 days gave me 38 outbound clicks. Impressions (the number of times your pin gets shown) were tiny too. I almost stopped around day 10.

I’m glad I didn’t. Pinterest seems to need time to figure out what your pins are about and who should see them. Nothing I did in those two weeks was wrong. The system just hadn’t warmed up yet.

Week three: one pin took off

On day 19, one pin got 4,000 impressions in a single day. A few days later it got 12,000.

By week 8, it had around 63,000 impressions and roughly 1,900 clicks to my article.

The design was average. What made it work was the phrase on it, which matched something people were actively searching for.

Here’s the part nobody tells you. Out of 270 pins, about 9 did most of the work. Those 9 drove roughly 70% of my clicks. The rest barely moved. And I couldn’t have guessed which 9 they’d be. That’s why posting a lot early on matters. You’re not being spammy, you’re running tests.

Step 4: Build more of what works

Every Sunday, I opened a simple sheet with four columns: pin, keyword, impressions, clicks. Then I sorted it by clicks.

For each of my top pins, I made three new ones using the same keyword, with a different headline, color, and layout. A winning pin tells you people want that exact topic. So I gave Pinterest more ways to show it.

I also stopped making pins around phrases that got nothing after three weeks.

This weekly habit did more for my numbers than any design trick. It took about 30 minutes.

Step 5: Send every pin straight to the article

Every pin linked directly to my Medium article. No “link in bio,” no landing page, no extra steps. People clicked, and they were reading.

But getting the click is only half of it. Someone arriving from Pinterest has zero patience. They came for one specific thing. So I set up the article for that:

• The title matches the pin: If the pin promised a simple budget, the title says so too.
• The answer starts early: The first few sentences confirm they’re in the right place.
• Headings use real search phrases: This also helps the article show up in Google.
• Five relevant tags: Medium lets you add up to five, so I used all of them.
• Short paragraphs: Most readers are on their phones.

If a pin says “5 steps,” the article had better have five steps. When the pin and the article don’t match, people leave in seconds, and that hurts your reading time.

Where the readers came from

When I checked my stats, the split was clear:

• United States: about 61%
• United Kingdom: about 12%
• Canada: about 7%
• Australia: about 5%
• Everywhere else: about 15%

That makes sense. Pinterest has a huge English-speaking audience, and a lot of them search for practical, everyday help. If you write in plain English about a real problem, you’re already speaking their language.

Mistakes that cost me weeks

I started with broad keywords. My first 30 pins used phrases like “save money” and “money tips.” Those are crowded, and my pins got buried. Specific phrases worked far better.

My text was too small. The prettiest designs did worst. Big and simple won.

I reused nearly the same design. Changing one word on the same layout doesn’t make a fresh pin. Change the look, not only the headline.

I checked stats every day. In the quiet weeks, that made everything feel dead. Once I switched to one weekly check, it got easier to stay steady.

A simple 30-day plan

If you want to test this yourself, here’s how I’d do it.

Week 1: Pick your topic. Write down 20 search phrases. Set up a free Pinterest business account with 6 boards. Publish your article with a matching title, clear headings, and all five tags.

Week 2: Design 30 pins with different headlines. Schedule 5 or 6 a day.

Week 3: Keep posting. Check stats once, at the end of the week, and that’s it.

Week 4: Do your first Sunday review. Find your top three pins and make three new versions of each.

Plan on 30 to 40 minutes a day at first. Batching helps a lot.

And be realistic. Your numbers will be different from mine. Your topic, the season, and the quality of your article all change the results. Some topics take longer to build. Give it at least 60 days before you decide it doesn’t work.

The first two weeks will probably look like nothing. That’s normal.

If you try this, drop your niche in the comments. I’m happy to suggest a few phrases worth testing.

How I Got 21,400 Views on One Medium Article Using Only Pinterest was originally published in Activated Thinker on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Of course, AI eases the process of writing. No need to type 2500 words for hours; no need to spend half a day on proofreading and editing. But my problem started here…

I used to produce 4000 words to 4500 words a day. That means I was able to do research, draft an outline, ideate, and produce ready-to-publish copies in 7 hours. But AI (LLMs) helped me a lot (that’s the problem). After introduction of LLM models, my employer insisted me and my team to capitalise it for more productivity. With AI, I was creating 5 to 7 articles a day. My job was to ideate, draft prompts, and edit the output to add a human touch and authority. It made me lazy to learn, to find new words myself, to try new writing patterns, to explore new tones. With AI, my productivity was 4X boosted, but it tore away my confidence.

Before AI, I could back every word I wrote; I could say why it was placed there, what it means, and anything about my piece of copy. Now, with advanced LLMs, I can say the core context of written content confidently (because that’s what I did). The words didn’t come from my mind. Yes, I proofread it. I can say the copy is good to go and doesn’t contain any contextual errors, but the words are not entirely mine. I don’t possess the ownership. It feels like AI grew by eating my confidence.

Now, I struggle more to focus, to write, to choose words. Even reading also seems like a huge task. My mind refuses to read and summarize 2000 words when I have a tool to do it in a minute for me.

I don’t think AI is taking us to a healthy environment. Maybe it’s a capitalists’ heaven, but as a normal layman, I see it as a bane.

I don’t fear AI. But a single question sticks in my mind: “Why do we need such advancement when our planet is dying?” We, humans, harm this planet more and more; we all know that; but still celebrating the water-sucking AI…

Do we have biodegradable diapers at a feasible cost to all? Do we have a cost-effective alternative to plastic in use around the globe? Have we started redesigning products to stop polluting the earth? Are we ready to repair instead of buying new? Hell…NO! But we have great AI here! Are we mature enough to use AI tech to resolve any of these problems as soon as possible? Not all of us; maybe a few of us! It includes me; I wasn’t mature enough to use AI properly for good.

I don’t say AI is a big NO, but this much of a huge availability feels threatening.

I’m just a writer, I want a tool to check grammar, typo, and give some suggestions, but not the brain do whatever I ask. It was more than I wanted; it made me lazy. You can say being lazy is my choice, not the effect of AI LLMs. Yes, I agree, but we’re humans. When a massive super brain is there for everyone, most of the people use it to do their works and they became idel.

I see AI-powered precise health care, AI in research, AI in monitoring & preventing natural disasters, and other worthy spaces as a goodwill. But AI for all is an unnecessary superpower.

And another point AI lovers usually present is that using AI is a choice; it’s a product. I would love to address it here. As a normal layman, I don’t choose AI, but the circumstances push me to adopt it. I belong to the IT industry; I have to adopt tools that an employer is looking for. If not, I will be kicked out. I can’t start over after almost 6 years in this career. That means, without my consent, AI is a part of my life. So, I can’t stop using AI, but at the same time I can’t compromise my confidence. So, I write without LLMs or any AI tools as my personal commitment. When it comes to my career, I use the tools preferred for the project.

I do the following to escape from this AI trauma;

• Write (without any AI tools) for my personal profiles.
• Read physical books.
• Plant trees whenever I get a chance.
• Trying to avoid non-degradable things (in progress).
• Trying to build a non-tech business (I’ve no idea where to start).

What are yours? And am I alone who is going through this phase or you too? Let’s speak in the comments.

Note: I don’t copy and paste this content to an AI bot to check whether this copy contains errors or not. It’s okay to make a few mistakes as a human. I’m okay with this. Honestly happy at this point.

AI grew by eating my confidence was originally published in Activated Thinker on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.