I've used AI for the last year - and now I'm addicted to it

Long time lurker here, and first time poster! <br><br><br>The heading says it all; I've used AI for the last year and I now I'm addicted to it. <br><br><br>**What happened?**<br><br>My interest for AI emerged when I was about to enter the 4th year of my Bachelor studies. The reason for this was that I was getting extremely tired of writing essays for school. <br><br><br>I first used DALL-E to create memes and joke images for my friends. But then I seen the features we were given in ChatGPT with their "ChatGPT for students" which powers the "Study" feature of the AI. <br><br><br>From here on out, I was hooked on using this tool because of the speed and easyness of doing school work. I could do everything from writing essays, making flash cards, summary assignments, to doing math assignments. <br><br><br>It was an amazing feeling, and it felt like I was on top of the world. I did everything in a flash, and I could take naps whenever I wanted to - because I never had to spend more than 2-3 hours on an assignment from scratch. <br><br><br>**But things started to change**<br><br>After a while, I started to feel really empty. I felt like I was lacking a challenge, and that the amount of schoolwork I got was not enough. I slowly started to notice that I came into a phase of boredom, because I wasn't really doing much. I could do everything in a flash, but I struggled to come up with things to do. <br><br><br>I felt empty because all I ever did was scroll on my phone - watching YouTube videos, Netflix, Snapchat, Instagram and so on. I quickly came to the conclusion that I had to do something, because this feeling of emptiness was not fun to be in. <br><br><br>**So, what did I do?**<br><br>To fill up the time I quickly came up with a lot of hobbies. I started to play football (soccer) which is something that I haven't done in 7-8 years. I started going for runs and doing other exercise aswell as training to get my driver's license. I also started to get into cooking and even try to eat healthy during the week. <br><br><br>I even started to get back into gaming, which is something I haven't done properly for about 4 years now. <br><br><br>It was about 3-4 months ago that I started to think about what I really wanted to do with my life. I started to feel like I was drifting through life like a leaf on the wind. I had no plans to do anything, I was simply living in the here and now. <br><br><br>Recently, we've gotten the opportunity at our school to go to a 1 month long course in Thailand, which is a great opportunity to travel to Asia and also get to know people from other cultures. I'm now waiting to here back if I got in, and I really hope I do so.<br><br><br>I've slowly started to realize that life is more than just existing in it. Life is more than just going through the motions, and I feel like I've been drifting through life for quite some time now. <br><br><br>**The hype is over**<br><br>Long story short - the hype that I felt with using AI slowly settled down. I quickly got over the feeling of using AI, and I now feel like I'm mostly using it to save time - but not really do anything more. <br><br><br>As Dave said, I had to create goals for myself in order to fill my time and have something to do. It doesn't feel like I'm bored anymore, but more like I'm working towards something. I'm now mostly using AI to help me with school, but I've also started to get into using Midjourney in order to create small pieces of art. <br><br><br>I don't think I'll be completely letting go of AI, but I must admit that it feels good to slowly have the desire to do things myself - like cooking healthy food and writing some of my essays myself. It's nice to have the feeling of getting better at something, and I feel like that's what's missing when I use AI.