The Wrong Question About AI

Last weekend, my robot lawnmower was doing its thing, quietly navigating the yard while I was inside with my family, and I caught myself saying something I’ve said probably a dozen times since we got it: “I enjoyed mowing, but I don’t know how I used to find the time to do it.” Because of the mower, I’ve been able to redirect that time towards things I value more, and I didn’t lose anything I actually cared about in the process. 

I’ve been thinking about that feeling a lot lately, especially as I finished reading Joanna Stern’s book I Am Not a Robot. If you haven’t read it, Stern, a tech journalist who used to write for the Wall Street Journal, chronicles her year long experiment living with AI agents, robot vacuums, and other automated tools designed to handle the friction of everyday life. What struck me wasn’t the technology itself. It was how quickly the things that felt strange or excessive became indispensable. Sound familiar? 

I’m also in the middle of setting up my own personal AI assistant, one that can take instructions and act on them while I do something else. This morning, my son needed his camp packing list printed before I left for work. Rather than digging through weeks of camp emails to find the right one, I sent a quick message to my AI assistant asking it to find the email and print it. I went upstairs, got ready, and came down to find it waiting on the printer. It sounds small, and it is, but that’s kind of the point: it’s experimenting with the small things that opens the door to the larger ones. 

Here’s the conversation that’s dominating the AI world right now, and you’ve probably heard some version of it: AI is either going to save us or destroy us, and the people saying so are not fringe voices. 

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic (the company behind the AI assistant Claude), has suggested that AI could displace 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs in five years. Elon Musk has painted a different but equally dramatic picture: AI-generated prosperity so vast that people simply won’t need to work, supported by a “universal high income” and explosive GDP growth. 

I listened to a recent episode of the All-In Podcast where this tension came into sharp focus. On one side: genuine concern about mass displacement and economic upheaval. On the other: the argument that we’ve seen this movie before: new technology doesn’t eliminate work so much as it reshapes it. Individuals armed with AI agents will be able to start businesses, serve clients, and produce output that would have previously required entire teams. Companies won’t shrink because their people are more productive; they’ll grow because now each person can do more. 

Both sides make real arguments and have smart people behind them. However, I would argue that both sides are asking the wrong question.   

The question isn’t what will AI do to the economy? 

The better question, the one that actually matters for how you live your life, is: how do I use these tools to get more of what I want out of life? 

I was recently working with a couple, and we were exploring how they might use their money to buy back time, specifically the time for things they said mattered most to them: being together, being outdoors, staying active, and spending more time with family and friends. 

One thing they both said they hated was cleaning, so I suggested they look into hiring someone to help them clean their house.  At first, the idea of hiring a house cleaner felt uncomfortable to them, almost indulgent. My wife and I went through the exact same decision over a year ago. It took us sitting down and articulating our actual values, not what we thought we should value but what we genuinely wanted more of, to realize that paying someone to help clean our house wasn’t a luxury, but rather an investment in the life we said we wanted to live. 

I wrote about a version of this years ago on this blog when I paid someone to install a shower door. I am perfectly capable of installing a shower door myself, but when I thought honestly about my time, energy, and what I wanted to spend a Saturday doing, it was a straightforward decision. That was the first time I really understood the difference between can I do this? and should I be the one doing this? 

The robot lawnmower, the robot vacuum Joanna Stern writes about, the AI agents that can draft emails and handle the administrative tasks that used to eat hours out of a week – they’re all expressions of the same instinct:  using what’s available to you to get more of what actually matters. 

This is where financial planning comes in, not as a footnote, but as the whole point. 

The doomsday debate treats AI as something happening to us. A force we’re subject to, for better or worse. But the more useful frame, and the one I try to bring to every client conversation, is agency. What do you actually want your life to look like? What do you want more of, and what are you willing to trade to get it? 

Money and technology are tools, so the question is whether you’re using them intentionally, in service of something you’ve actually thought about, or just reacting to whatever comes next. 

I’m not dismissing the macro concerns. Structural economic shifts are real, and the pace of AI development is genuinely unprecedented. But I’ve watched clients tie themselves in knots over market forecasts, geopolitical risk, and economic predictions, most of which don’t materialize the way anyone expects, and almost none of which are within their control. Meanwhile, the decisions that do move the needle (how they spend their time, what they spend their money on, what they’re building toward) often get less attention than they deserve.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, people spend more time planning a one-week vacation than they do their financial future. 

The couples who figure out that buying back time is worth spending money on? They’re not waiting for the AI debate to settle. They’re already living differently. 

That’s the question worth asking. Not what will AI do? But what do I want to do, and how do I use everything available to me to get there?

As I finish this blog post, my robot lawnmower just sent me a notification that it finished the yard, and it will start all over again tomorrow.  Thank goodness it’s on top of it, because I still haven’t figured out where I’d find the time otherwise.

Schedule an introductory phone call with Mark at this link: Mark Brinser – Introductory Phone Call

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