> [...] considering we're asking people who struggle with avoiding quick dopamine to use it professionally in their daily work life.
It's so wild that it never dawned on me, why some people around me were so quick with "Let AI do that!". I'm not saying that each and everyone has ADHD, but I think I underestimated a) the flow of dopamine a successful prompt can set free and b) the craving for it by folks that I deemed more stable than myself.
As someone with ADHD, it’s really a problem. I have so many random documents of random outputs from prompts I didn’t track. It’s honestly accelerated some of my worst habits because it feels like I actually completed a task. The reality is I just have folders of half finished projects, which anyone with ADHD can relate to.
I feel kind of lucky in a way that I hate working with AI so much. I'd rather hammer nails through my fingers than spend my time prompting
So my ADHD isn't being satisfied by those little dopamine hits from LLMs, Any time I'm forced to use them I'm mad about it, and can't wait to be done with it
I still have that folder of half finished things just like you, though. It's just not AI generated
I thought about it a little deeper and I think software development has always had the addictive tendency. That hunt for the solution to the problem, has a rush when you complete it.
It’s just that the rush is more frequent, addiction intensity scales with dose and frequency.
Don't know man. I'm also neurodivergent, subclinical in many ways at least on many things (I use science and self-development to keep myself remarkably stable for my neurotype). My issue with programming has always been that it feels so lonely and you get to care about things that no one else seems to really care about. So it removes one further from the general public.
I feel with AI agents, the pendulum shifted back a bit.
I do get what you're saying that software development has an addictive tendency as 20% of the time I am like that as well (and then I'm the "eat, sleep, code" kind). But at the same time, it's just not true for everyone.
I guess what it is: in order for software development to have an addictive tendency for one, certain conditions need to be met beforehand.
> has always had the addictive tendency
If you meant just your own experience by the way then I misread your comment. Since it reads to me as if you're trying to generalize it a bit.
I struggle to see the difference between "Let AI do that" and what a founder/executive is instinctively led to do also (i.e. delegate). Why does it have to be an ADHD thing? Yes, I see the risks of AI for someone with ADHD (described well in this article [0]), and for that reason I agree that ADHDers should be careful with these tools, as they present both a lot of promise and peril. But also... delegating functions to an 'agent' (whether human or AI) is just what people end up doing in life. Hard to tell these things apart...
It's so wild that it never dawned on me, why some people around me were so quick with "Let AI do that!". I'm not saying that each and everyone has ADHD, but I think I underestimated a) the flow of dopamine a successful prompt can set free and b) the craving for it by folks that I deemed more stable than myself.