Did AI fry my brain?!

There's something off with this generative audio stuff

This is the first time I’ve posted to my substack in a while

The last post was over a year ago (!) and even that was written, in part, by AI

I’ve been riding this AI wave and inadvertently fried my brain

I’m serious

This post is a brain dump of what I’ve been going through the past few weeks. And AI didn’t write it (it didn’t even edit it!)… I know, crazy right?!

If this is the sort of substack you want to read, let me know! It’s going to be an honest stream of thought:

First, how did I get here?

For the past few years I’ve been building apps based on the latest AI advancements. We call these AI wrappers.

It started with my AI Identifier series:

Take a photo of a fish: identify it

Take a photo of a bug: identify it (no not a software bug, it’s not THAT smart, the creepy crawly type)

Even a vegan meal scanner: take a photo of your food and it will tell you if its’ vegan or vegetarian

Life was good.

Revenue was good

So naturally I wanted to explore more AI wrappers and ride the next wave of progress

Enter: Generative audio and video

For the past few months I’ve been building PromoKit

A tool that generates content marketing to promote your app on TikTok, Reels and Shorts

I have this problem: I want to get more downloads from content marketing

But I also have this other problem: I don’t have time to create the actual content

So surely there’s an easier way, right?

Maybe I can combine my experience creating YouTube content with my experience in AI and app development

Now we’re onto something!

And it kinda works

But for the past few weeks I’ve been listening to this AI generated voice non stop

I mean, non stop

Like this has been the default background noise on my headphones, on my laptop, on my phone

Absolutely everywhere

And I’ve started to feel… off

Just a real uneasy feeling. Something just doesn’t feel right

I cannot explain it

And I don’t think it’s burn out…

I think it’s something to do with the way this audio is synthesized

Subconsciously my mind and body just doesn’t feel right, and I want to kind of get away from it

This week I made the decision to abandon the project (for now)

I might pick it up again in the future. I think there’s *something* there

But I think I’m going to stay away from generative audio for a while

Honestly, even writing this, it’s giving me chills. I don’t like the stuff

At least with generative text you read it in your own voice

Video has a bit of an uncanny valley feel to it (you know when it’s off)

But audio just hijacks something inside your brain

A direct link to your subconscious or something

Anyway, this is a self indulgent post, kinda warning about ai but also.. ai is kinda cool

So I don’t know what this post is about

But I just needed to share

Thanks for reading this far