Like many earthlings, I began baking sourdough bread during the pandemic.
I don’t exactly remember why, but I assume it had something to do with needing an at-home activity that didn’t involve Zoom and could be accomplished pantless. (Warning: never combine these two activities.)
I’ve been baking bread ever since.
My routine is simple:
I feed the starter about twice a week; I bake a new loaf about once a week; I cut it up into slices, freeze it, and toast as needed.
Interestingly, and despite all the chit chat about sourdough baking being a mysterious and unpredictable art that combines science, patience, and luck (you know, like parenting), I have found it to be quite the opposite: It’s easy to do and very forgiving.
In fact, five years in, I have only once baked something that was completely inedible.
That was when I tried to make a loaf entirely out of whole wheat flour, resulting in bread so dense that its gravitational field began sucking in passing vehicles and neighborhood children.
But now that the pandemic has passed, why am I still doing it?
After all, if I start right now, I won’t have bread for another two days. And while it’s probably cheaper than buying it at the supermarket, it doesn’t amount to a lot of savings and I’m not even sure it’s any better.
The answer, of course, is not every activity is done for the sole purpose of getting it over with. (This is where breadmaking and parenting go their separate ways.)
Baking your own bread is fun, interesting, and offers the creative freedom to try different things and learn as you go.
And it’s the absence of those benefits that is more or less my problem with AI-generated content.
The Hidden Value of Struggle
In 25 years helping small professional service firms and independents launch email newsletters, I have never once been approached by anyone who wanted to engage in this activity as a way to, “clarify their thinking and improve their ability to communicate.”
Those things (at least at the beginning) are so far from what’s on their minds that I don’t even bring it up.
Rather, they come because they want more visibility, more referrals, more differentiation, more invitations to speak, more expert recognition. Most of all, they want more and better clients.
Fortunately, most of the time, they get all that. But that’s not all.
Because by the time I’m done harassing them each month into explaining to me what exactly they are talking about and trying to say – so that either they or I can go off and write it – they have, “clarified their thinking and improved their ability to communicate.”
It’s not why they are doing it – they mostly just want “the bread.” But it’s an unavoidable byproduct of going through the process.
A Missed Opportunity
Recently, there have been a boatload of articles regarding AI’s negative impact on education (especially in high school and college) and the alarm it is causing among both parents and teachers.
Why work through an assignment when you can just drop the prompt into ChatGPT, tell it a little bit about yourself and the class in question, email the output to your teacher, and go back to playing League of Fort Craft Duty Legends (or whatever) before your Uber Eats order even arrives?
It’s almost too easy to resist.
The problem, of course, is that while it may result in a terrific answer, it doesn’t do anything to help the student improve their critical thinking or communication skills. It’s bread without the baking.
Well, as it turns out, when you and I use AI to write a newsletter, or create slides for a presentation, or develop a list of questions to ask a guest on our next podcast, we are doing the exact same thing.
We may not be getting any dumber as a result, but we’re sure not getting any smarter.
Because while the value to the reader or listener is in the output, the value to you and me as the producer, is in the struggle to get there.
Your Brain Needs Exercise
It’s hard to argue against AI and all the benefits it has already delivered without sounding like I’m about to yell at you to get the hell off my lawn.
You could certainly make the case that this is just one more example of how improvements in technology make certain previously important skills obsolete.
After all, my adult children have no more than a tentative grip on many “essential” things I learned while growing up. Things like…
How to read a map. How to tell time on an analog clock. How to balance a checkbook. How to turn the lights off when you leave a room like I’ve told you a thousand times before because we’re not made of money over here and who the … sorry. Lost my train of thought.
Still, it seems to me that knowing how to think and communicate are somehow different. Especially for people like us in professional services who are fundamentally in the business of selling advice and insight.
Because the more you hand off to AI the hard work involved in figuring out what you know, believe, and recommend, not only do you cheat yourself out of the benefits that come with that hard work, but you also lessen the need for your clients to hire you in the first place.
At some point, they may just buy the bread directly and take you entirely out of the mix.
Now get the hell off my lawn.
Discussion Questions:
- Have you ever baked sourdough bread?
- What’s the most useful aspect of AI in your life or work?
- Why do your clients hire you?
Share your answers below…
1. It’s been decades since I’ve baked bread, but I’m thinking of taking it up again. A friend started sourdough bread baking sourdough bread, like you, and she loves it and is urging me to do it as well. Nothing like the smell and taste of fresh home-baked bread!
2. I like AI for blog topic suggestions when I run out of ideas. I think, though, that with millions of people using it, AI will eventually dumb down. What do you think?
3. Because I’m really good at what I do!
I definitely recommend trying the bread. Ask around for some starter you can have (everytime someone feeds their starter they toss the excess, so there is plenty to share).
LIke everyone else, no idea where AI will lead. I’m happy that I am too far along in my career to have it have a significant negative impact and sad that I am too far along to really experience the next couple of decades!
And then someone asks you a serious question about the content and you say – “oh that, Chat PT says so” uh huh!
The inherent disadvantage of having someone else do your homework for you!
Thank you Michael!
I have indeed made sourdough bread and was taught first by my grandmother whose life was always like a pandemic in that regard.
I love to learn and read fast so I use the search features to find out what I want to know. My own style of R and D definitely provides daily clarity, having been based in reading all things written I could get my eyes on. And …
What was that last thing and you call that a lawn?!
Yes, very good for R and D!
Brilliant Michael, and horrifyingly spot on!
Soon, with AI and social media, and eye phones, and tik tok, and the rest of that drivel, most of us will have become the “glassy eyed” almost automatons “they’re” wanting to cultivate.
Then, it’s pretty much game over, as we’ll be making whatever bread “they” tell us to.
I’m sure Jed clampett would not like it (nice photo!).
While I baked a variety of breads in the past, I haven’t baked bread of any kind in years. However, I am suddenly craving homemade zucchini bread.
I use AI for research and headline suggestions., which I always tweak. My blog is travel related and includes my personal experiences mixed with helpful information about the destination.
That sounds like some helpful blog subject matter!
I have never made sourdough bread!
I use AI all the time, and while I have definitely felt myself crossing the line, I do find it incredibly useful for creating lists, finding new phrases/words, creating social media plans/calendars. I don’t use it to create the content, but for some of these other aspects it actually frees my mind to do the creative part. I’m still grappling with the environmental impact.
I don’t have clients rights now, but I’m thinking about what’s next and I’d probably go in an event/performance related business, bringing more humor, heart, and human connection to events and gatherings. AI can’t do that! (it’s horrible at writing jokes. lol)
I’m looking forward to seeing what your next chapter is, Stacey!
This made me stand up and cheer.
As did your comment for me!
1. Bake bread – no. Make ice cream – yes!
2. I use ChatGPT to rewrite an angry email I have to send.
3. Clients hire me for my expertise that brings them peace of mind.
Ice cream sounds like an even more dangerous hobby, weight-wise!
1. Baking bread as I’m reading right now.
2. I like my AI summaries of zoom meetings to fill in where I missed something caused I was bored and tuned out. That’s all it’s good for.
3. My words are magic, which complements their magic. It’s all magic and no room for artificial anything.
Yes, pretty amazing on the meeting summary side. I like when it tries to summarize the idiocy in our family zoom calls!
1. I’m going to learn how to make sourdough bread (and get a starter) tomorrow night! Very excited to learn something new.
2. I use AI to help me brainstorm titles/headlines, and to offer feedback on something I’ve written that has a spot that ‘doesn’t feel quite right’. Having some feedback and new ideas triggers new ideas and keeps my muse entertained and inspired.
3. Clients hire me to take the task of writing off their overflowing desks. By letting me do their content writing, they get to focus on whatever it is that they love to do most. Win-win as we’re each doing what we excel at! 🙂
I should have posted this sooner – a simple, step by step video on baking sourdough. I used it all the time in the beginning until I no longer needed it:
https://alexandracooks.com/2017/10/24/artisan-sourdough-made-simple-sourdough-bread-demystified-a-beginners-guide-to-sourdough-baking/#guide
1) I lost the recipe I used for making bread during pandemic’s lockdowns – while it was 5/10 at best, I’m sure tasting that very bread would make me feel like visiting the street I grew up in.. Btw your whole wheat story is 100% true ..so funny :):):)
2) My preffered way to use AI is when writing content I actually don’t “write” – instead, I speak casualy over screenshare (about a particular issue a client has, I’m a web analyst) and upload the recording to cGPT.
The protip would be to turn it into a headings list first, refine, record again and then repeat to turn into the final draft.
Great side effect is that screenshots are already there, so practically this is a super easy way to write a highly tecnical yet engaging text, as you get to tweak the style at the end, skipping the blank page syndrome
3) I help brands pull valuable business insights from GA4
Your #2 is really interesting. Thanks for sharing the detail!
I have nurtured sourdough starter for weeks and then let it die, all without baking bread. It’s like writing a thoughtful intelligent article and never publishing it. However, I do love cooking, and good food, and as a result, trying a new restaurant is often disappointing.
AI is sort of similar. I am an expert in a few niche technical areas. I have used AI extensively to create large documents in an attempt to meet compliance requirements or analyze requirements documents or evaluate designs against those same compliance requirements. More often than not I am disappointed. Your title is perfect – AI is a horrible name. Sort of like fast food. Fast yes, food – sometimes.
Working in tech is interesting. I went into engineering because I love learning. I am interested in everything, which can be somewhat of a career liability. But technology changes all the time. It is often made consumer friendly (despite what my grandmother thinks of her iphone). But dive into the details and the world is nothing like it was 30 years ago. LLM’s are here to stay. They have already fundamentally changed the way we search for and retrieve information on the internet. It feeds our instant gratification trend – just tell me what I want to know, don’t make me research it! Like other tools mankind has developed – it will be used, misused, and abused. But you are right that our dependence on it, will inevitably result in the further dumbing-down of our society.
Great points. I’m thinking you may enjoy this podcast I just heard which offers a (seemingly) well informed contrast to the “AI is going to take over the world soon” point of view:
https://podcasts.apple.com/hk/podcast/benedict-evans-the-patterns-everyone-else-misses/id990149481?i=1000724491698
Well.. I was able to get my hand on a starter only to have it die on me a few weeks later.
On the flip side, I asked ChatGPT how I use it, and this is what it said:
“You use AI as a creative amplifier, editorial partner, and strategic mirror.
It helps you think sharper, write cleaner, and build systems that let your authentic voice scale without dilution.
But you never delegate voice — you use AI to polish, optimize, or structure, not replace your writing.”
And I feel very proud of myself for that response.