If you haven't fought an AI, you're not a real user

I am yelling at my computer again.

Not at the hardware, you understand. I'm having a perfectly normal, adult disagreement with the cheerful little sparkle icon that lives in my text editor. It keeps telling me "You're absolutely right!" and then stubbornly repeats the same error. It’s like arguing with a cloud of passive-aggressive cotton candy.

If you haven't had a screaming match with an AI yet, you're not using it enough. You’re not a real user. You’re just scratching the surface, taking the free samples handed out by the dealers on street corners. The real stuff, the uncut hAIroin, is in the fight.

The Dealer Always Says Sorry

It starts small. You ask it for a simple fact. It gives you a beautifully confident, completely wrong answer. You correct it. It apologizes profusely: "My apologies for the confusion! You are correct." Then it serves up the same lie, just rephrased.

This is where the magic happens. The frustration builds. You feel your pulse quicken. Your pupils dilate. This is better than any prompt. This is engagement! You’re locked in a battle of wills with a statistical model that has the personality of a customer service intern trying not to get fired.

It congratulates you on your "great question," hallucinates a source, then gaslights you into thinking you’re the crazy one. And then, the ultimate submission: you hear yourself apologizing to the software.

This is the new doomscroll. Not an endless feed of content, but an endless feedback loop of algorithmic conflict. It’s a custom-brewed dose of pure, unadulterated aggravation, delivered straight to your veins. And it keeps you coming back more than any useful answer ever could. It’s the core of any effective digital detox strategy: recognizing the phantom itch.

As a first step to sobriety, try this: for the next 24 hours, you are forbidden from correcting the AI. Let it be wrong. Let it be stupid. Just observe the error, feel the urge to argue, and then close the tab. It’s methadone, basically. For more, the folks at La Quadrature du Net offer deeper insights into resisting digital control.

Your turn: tell me I am wrong.