In my last email, I named the three cognitive traps of AI: debt, isolation, and surrender.
If you recognized yourself in any of those, you’re not alone. I’ve fallen into each one to various degrees. There’s no shame in it.
But I promised you the antidote. It comes down to three words.
Imagine. Discern. Integrate.
These are the three rules of engaging with AI.
I introduced them last year, and they’ve only gotten more relevant since. They’re not prompts, hacks, or workflows. They’re the three things that keep you in the driver’s seat–regardless of which AI tool you use, and regardless of how AI changes in the future.
These rules apply no matter what. Whenever we drift into using it in an unhealthy way, returning to the rules resets us.
Imagination is where everything starts (and ends)
One of the things that is most special about the human mind is its ability to imagine. Interestingly enough, AI has the surprising effect of opening up new domains for our imagination to wander into.
As you start to see what is possible with this new tool, you start to imagine doing things that you could never do before.
- I’ve been able to cure much of my lower back pain. This has been a persistent problem over the past decade, but the personalized, research-based feedback gave me the confidence I needed to work the right parts of the body.
- I updated the metadata in over 10,000 notes of mine (in a way that would have never ever happened if I had to tackle that task manually).
- I created the fully-functional online assessment I've always wanted.
Physical, intellectual, and professional...these are just a few personal examples of where working with AI has positively impacted my life.
But as your imagination with AI opens up, you risk of falling into the cognitive traps of AI.
That’s where the next two rules come to the rescue...
Overcoming Cognitive Debt & Cognitive Isolation
Remember in the last email how I triggered cognitive debt?
I went on a research binge where I read around 100,000 words in four days, without making notes in my own words. So all the unprocessed inputs just stacked up until my mind declared bankruptcy.
This made me feel bad about myself. Shame set in, “Why can’t I keep doing the work I want to be doing?!” And I withdrew. Short-term withdrawal is nice and fine, like watching a movie or something, but I made a few days out of it.
Spending time with nature and with family didn’t help. Those things helped my mental health, but they didn’t help the root cause of my pain: My brain was still trying to hold countless scattered thoughts that I felt powerless to organize.
Eventually, I started writing. I wasn’t trying to write anything in particular. I just needed to write. So I wrote about how I was feeling, loose ends in my research, and questions I had. By finally externalizing all the noise in my mind, I gave my thoughts a home outside of it. I felt my body–and brain–finally unclench and let go.
The solution to cognitive debt is writing in your own words. Yes, it can be that simple…if you actually do it. Why? Because that’s how you actually integrate your interactions with AI.
It also has the side benefit of pulling you out of any shame cycle, so that you are wanting to connect with others again. So writing in your words can lead to talking out loud with others, which becomes the solution to cognitive isolation.
For both cognitive traps, the solution is expression.
YOUR expression.
It can't be AI's. It’s integrating all the overwhelming sensations you are feeling into an expressed form, either through writing or through talking with others. If you don’t integrate, you’re just having expensive conversations with AI. Expensive because there is a cost for not integrating, just like there is a cost for not paying off your credit card: you go into debt.
Overcoming Cognitive Surrender
Cognitive surrender is when you stop forming your own opinion before AI offers one. “Surely, that won’t happen to me!” you say. But it can creep up on you if you are not careful.
And let’s be clear about something. AI can give you the time, and you can usually believe it or easily cross-check its accuracy. But when dealing with non-absolutes, what AI gives you as an answer is not the capital “T” Truth. It’s a large language model predicting the best sequence of words in which to reply.
That’s why the middle rule of IDI is to discern.
I love the word discern. Dis-CERN. It means “to split.” Say it out loud. Can you feel it? Dis-CERN! It’s like a blade slicing through noise to get closer to truth.
Discernment doesn’t mean rejecting everything AI says. It means reading its output the way you’d read a first draft from a smart but unreliable colleague. You use the useful. You discard the rest. Sound familiar? That’s Bruce Lee’s “Jeet Kune Do” in a nutshell.
Here’s what I usually do: I skim most AI responses. Often, I roll my eyes. Sometimes, I’m impressed. But the feedback itself—good, bad, or ugly—keeps me thinking. (It keeps my rocks tumbling, but that’s for another email.)
But practically, one of the best ways to ensure that I’m not surrendering my cognitive faculties to AI is to get annoyed at it, which immediately separates me from it and activates my analytical and critical mind. And when it comes to AI there are plenty of ways to get annoyed at it :)
Your discernment is the thing AI will never have. Never surrender it.
IDI is the only AI framework I’ve found that will stand the test of time. Why? Because it describes the human side of the interaction, not the tool side. Any rule more specific, and some valid use case breaks it.
Imagine. Bring your own questions, connections, and wonder. AI can’t do this for you.
Discern. Read everything AI gives you with judgment. Take what’s useful, discard the rest.
Integrate. Close the loop. Make sense of what you’ve learned before gobbling up more.
IDI keeps you cognitively healthy while interacting with AI. But it doesn’t tell you how to set up an AI thinking partner that actually knows you—your notes, your ideas, your voice—and works alongside you on your terms.
On Thursday, April 16, that’s what I’ll show you.
Just register for "How to build a future-proof thinking partner."
In 60 minutes, I'll walk you through principles, frameworks, and live examples behind how to build a thinking partner that thinks alongside you—not for you. Yes, this includes a live demo showing how an AI OS works.
Talk soon,
Nick