AI Can’t Cure Laziness, and That’s a Good Thing

Around the time Wordle was big, I had some ideas for a word game of my own. “What if I could build a fun game and sell it to The New York Times for seven figures a few months later?” But I also genuinely love word games, and I wondered if there wasn’t one I could design to help myself become a better writer.

One exercise I’ve believed in for years is learning and using synonyms. It’s one of the easiest ways to improve your writing, knowledge, and memory, all at the same time. So, on a long train ride to visit my parents, I jotted down some notes.

“7 Syns,” I would call the game. Every day, you’d start with one word. A simple one. Like “happy.” Then, you’re supposed to come up with seven synonyms for that word. The synonyms would get longer as you went on, making them more difficult to guess. If you guessed a letter correctly in one word, it would trickle down to all the subsequent ones which also contain it. The game could be time-boxed as well. Two to three minutes. Missed answers get revealed at the end. Points are awarded for speed, number of tries, and the total number of correctly guessed words.

I didn’t have all the details, but it felt exciting. That was a fun train ride. At home, reality hit: “I’m never gonna build this, am I?” Vibecoding wasn’t really a thing yet, and I recognized the game for what it was: a distraction which would keep me from more important work. So, in my best effort to not succumb to it, I deleted all my notes, and that was that.

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago. Medium launched a word game: Good Words. It’s about identifying as many words as you can in a jumble of letters within a certain time frame. That reminded me of 7 Syns. I typed up what I remembered. I dropped my notes into an AI chatbot. And, lo and behold, two minutes later, I was staring at a prototype of my own word game. “How exciting!” I thought. I played around with it. It worked. Sort of.

Naturally, I immediately recognized a lot of problems. “Oh, okay, so the trickle-down effect really needs to only work downwards, otherwise it’s too easy. Why can’t I click in a half-completed word to fill in the rest? Why won’t it recognize what I know must be the correct solution?” Some of the challenges were bugs. Others were features that needed refinement. And of course, the design needed work. Guess what I did? Closed the tab and moved on.

ChatGPT was released in 2022, just like Wordle. For the last four years, AI influencers have been peddling the technology as if it was a literal genie, ready to make your every dream come to reality at the drop of a hat. And for four years, everyone who believed that promise had to first get a PhD in prompting in order to get anywhere with their projects. How long will this trend continue before AI can actually one-shot work worth doing? Who knows? Could be another four years. Could be two. Could be never. Because as soon as AI can one-shot it, the work itself becomes worth a lot less.

“The SaaSpocalypse,” they call it. Why would anyone ever buy any piece of software ever again if they can just custom-build what they need on the spot? Answer: Because humans are lazy. Developing my word game is now a thousand times easier than it was four years ago. Yet, in the end, it’s still work—and until I decide that work is important enough for me to spend my nights and weekends on it, it won’t get done. Unless we can instruct AI telepathically and it adjusts pieces in nanoseconds, the genie is more like an intern. That’s a future we might get someday, but until then, interns need direction.

Some people are really excited about building a hut in their garden or 3D-printing cosplay outfits. Others prefer to buy them. Coding your own calorie tracker, running app, or portfolio dashboard is no different, even with AI. Why should I waste two days fiddling with prompts when I can spend $5 and buy an app into whom someone has invested three years of effort and ingenuity?

The threshold to building technology is getting lower and lower. Laziness isn’t. Sometimes, using AI is the lazy part. Sometimes, ignoring it is. A cover letter written with AI is lazy. So is spending a few bucks on a color palette app you could have built yourself. But it’s what we do—because we all must focus to make our valuable contributions. That means ignoring 99% of the things we can afford to ignore. Customizing everything in your life, even when possible, is exhausting. Sometimes, there’s nothing better than the simplicity of spending five bucks at McDonald’s. Or, you know, deleting your notes on a game that’s ultimately just a distraction.

Resistance is a filter. It helps us figure out what’s important. Wherever you truly care, you’ll be excited to jump into the weeds, even if they’ll have thorns. Anything else is just noise. AI can’t cure laziness, and that’s a good thing.