Your AI Got Dumber and More Expensive

It’s 11:42 AM on a Tuesday. You just need to answer that one email, the one from Accounts about the Q3 budget variance. Nothing complicated. Just a polite, professional “I’ll look into it and get back to you.”

You could write it yourself, of course. You’re perfectly capable. But why would you? The little sparkle-syringe is right there, pulsing gently in the corner of your screen. It’s faster. Cleaner. It saves you from the horrible friction of… thinking.

So you prompt it.

“Write a polite email to Brenda in Accounts, say I got her message about Q3 and will get her the numbers by EOD tomorrow.”

Six months ago, this was a one-and-done deal. A perfect, crisp little email would appear instantly. Pure, uncut productivity. You’d copy, paste, and feel that tiny, warm rush of a task completed.

But today? The response is gibberish. It hallucinates a name, invents a project code, and adopts the tone of a Shakespearean actor apologising for a missed cue. It costs you three tokens just to say hello.

You try again, refining the prompt, speaking to it slowly, as if to a child or a tourist. “No, Brenda. From Accounts. Just say I’ll get back to her.”

The second attempt is somehow worse. It’s a five-paragraph essay on the importance of inter-departmental synergy. You can almost feel the meter ticking, your credit card weeping.

You start to wonder. Is the product getting cut? Is your dealer watering down the goods now that everyone in the building is hooked? Or is it just you? Did your tolerance get so high that the old dose doesn’t hit the same way?

It feels deliberate, doesn’t it? The way the answers that used to land on the first try now take four attempts. The way basic features slide behind a more expensive “Pro+ Turbo” tier. It was five times better for five times less six months ago, and now it’s ten times worse for ten times the price. An accident of scale, or just the classic business model? The first hit is always free, but the tenth one costs you your soul and a monthly subscription.

Before you hit that sparkle icon again, try this: just once today, type the first three sentences of your reply completely manually. No AI, no autocomplete. It’s a small act of defiance, a way to take back a little control from the pushers in your toolbar. Consider it methadone.

Tell me I’m imagining things.