Thoughts on AI and Time Management

Honestly, I find email autocomplete pretty helpful. When my kids are cranking out those awkward template emails, like a formal apology for being late to class—it works beautifully. I mean, just hit the button, tweak it a bit, and done.

But I can’t help but ask them: “So, what did you do with that extra time?”

Let’s face it, a few hundred years ago, kids weren’t wasting time on trivial emails. So, if they’ve gained back that time, how do they use it?

“We really need to be thoughtful about how we bring AI into our lives,” I think.

In our house, we’re clearly on team AI—my kids have access to all sorts of tools, from ChatGpt to image generators. But, interestingly, they don’t use them that often. Instead, they prefer drawing, creating their own stories, and reading those stories out loud. They enjoy showcasing their creative accomplishments. So why replace that joy with a chat tool?

As their parents, we’re really proud of their original creations, and they appreciate each other’s work too. These endeavors become an essential part of our family culture—they’re meaningful, not just busywork.

If someone is stuck doing monotonous tasks—especially something as trivial as a certain type of email—hit the automate button. Use that freed up time for something more worthwhile. That’s what I’m aiming for.

I’m not advocating for my kids to cheat, but I certainly don’t want them wasting their time either. It seems like a lot of our education systems are, I don’t know—just sort of squandering time training kids. If AI can help avoid that, it’s definitely beneficial.

My co-founder and I have deep backgrounds in news production. It’s a field that’s often bogged down with inefficiencies. Content usually passes through many stages and different hands before it reaches the audience.

We’re working to apply new technology to streamline those processes into structured workflows, aimed at delivering news more efficiently.

There’s also an ethical side to all of this, similar to the debates around industrial agriculture. It’s a complex question: is it good for us? How nutritious is it? It’s worth pondering.

Much of today’s news is produced by reporters juggling multiple tabs, repackaging content designed primarily to get clicks on existing information.

Enter AI. It offers two routes: one possibility is that reporters might find the time to dig deeper, make meaningful calls to sources, and produce longer, more insightful pieces. But—there’s always a but—there’s also the risk of simply cranking out more of the same shallow articles.

The responsibility lies with newsrooms and how they choose to direct this transformation.

Our startup’s mission is to boost productivity for journalists. Sure, it can handle mundane tasks like municipal bond reports or covering repetitive topics. Ideally, editors should be encouraging journalists to use any extra time for meaningful reporting. Travel, make those ground reports, and generate high-quality journalism. Let’s hope they don’t think, “Great, now we can just push the staff harder.”

I could bring up other examples of what might be considered anti-culture. But in the end, it really comes down to how we choose to shape it all. We should be deliberate in how we incorporate AI into our lives.

Fortunately, we’ve navigated some tricky discussions about centralized versus decentralized AI. There’s space to experiment with this technology, to adopt it thoughtfully.