being frank

I began writing this article on my birthday, or what I refer to as the latest release version of Frank. As with most upgrades, I looked back and thought of how I might improve the next version of myself through a concerted effort towards simplification. That got me to thinking about my beloved.

CeCe loved the song A Simple Life by Toto. It’s an uncomplicated song with an uncomplicated chorus:

“All I want is a simple life; all I really want is you.”

As a songwriter, I’ve always marveled at the poetic simplicity inherent to any successful song. A well-known romance novelist once told me that she could not fathom how I could say everything I needed to convey in a format that didn’t last more than five minutes. The term simple complexity rolled off my tongue before I could even think; those are the best of revelations.

And that’s how CeCe and I viewed A Simple Life. For us, it was part of the overall common theme to our lives. Everything was getting more complex as we labored, like most, to navigate through a life where people were thinking less and reacting more; where contradictions were less of a conversational component and more of a challenge or provocation. Life was losing the ability to treasure simplicity in favor of a defense mechanism that was not of its making.

Years before all of this, I would post the following mantra in almost all of my tech articles when it came to addressing the inherent dangers brought about by the unending barrage of technological trinkets:

“The issue isn’t so much about what technology can do for us, but rather what it will do to us.”

Whenever I brought this up, it felt as though I was Leo Durocher doling out a quizzically confusing aphorism that would make people nod theirs heads, laugh a little, yet do nothing to let the ramifications of such a statement sink in. I do realize that I’m showing my age here, but that whole exercise would remind me of a stanza from an old Cole Porter song that was used in the movie, High Society:

“Have you heard? It’s in the stars; next July, we collide with Mars. Well, did you evah? What a swell party this is!”

In today’s blogs, podcasts and untold online publications, pundits are espousing observations or ideas on how to lead a simple life. They usually try to avoid opining one way or another as to whether or not you should lead a completely ascetic life without technology. Instead, they call for a balance. But that went along with the assumption that a few essential apps might still factor into some part of a balanced life.

If I may take a moment to revisit the 20^th century, simplifying your life meant leaving behind the modern worker’s tools of the trade – cell phones, pagers, day planners, laptops, PDAs, etc.. The simplifications in and of themselves were basic choices: Taking walks in a park or other areas surrounded by nature; meeting up with a friend to have a quiet conversation over coffee or lunch; riding your bike to work; visiting a favorite spot where you might be able to paint, write, do some photography, or just be alone with your thoughts. Simplification was about slowing down. About focusing on something that would bring you peace, joy or an opportunity to reacquaint yourself with nature, rediscover your own thoughts or perhaps that special someone in your life. You know; that song by Toto.

For most people in the 21^st century, simplifying your life means adopting a series of life hacks. The concept of lifehacking began as an idea in 2004 by a technology journalist named Danny O’Brien.¹ He coined the term to describe coding shortcuts that computer programmers used. Eventually, lifehacking expanded its meaning to include ways of simplifying tasks both in the physical and digital domains. The idea was to find innovative ways to shave off time, save money, and be more efficient – or as the expression goes, work smarter not harder.²

And so, lifehacks became a part of the language of the new millennia. We accepted them as the next logical and inspired solutions for simplifying our lives, be it from DIY lifehacks for the home to finding pithy solutions for becoming a leader who can be seen. But what I wanted to address is what many are considering to be the latest (and ultimate) simplification lifehack: Artificial Intelligence (AI). When AI came onto the social scene, we took to it like remoras – you know, the suckerfish that attach themselves to sharks and stingrays. The low cost, high yield app allowed us to create computational wonders using our basic lexicon; it showed us how to better protect our digital footprint while enhancing the knowledge we picked up in school and giving our menial efforts far less of a framework for success than they deserved. And AI? All it wanted in return was to learn everything about us. It quickly became the new fantasy companion; the friend, compatriot, buddy, and lover we always idealized. All inside of our computer and accessible 24/7; how much simpler can life be?

I’m going to cut straight to the chase here and burst that bubble for you: AI is not a lifehack; AI does not possess the means by which to simplify your life. AI is what I call an LTM – a Life Transfer Mechanism.

I’ve written in past articles³ about both my admiration and concern for the manner in which AI has assumed a mantle of responsibility for enhancing and often eclipsing our human efforts involving various fields of endeavor. Such moves are representational of progress, and many can and will provide a means for a transformative future. But AI as a tool for simplifying your life? If you find that appealing, perhaps you may want to take a moment and reconsider what the word life means to you.

In a recent televised episode, Jon Stewart (from The Daily Show) interviewed⁴ Tristan Harris, a Technology Ethicist and the co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Humane Technology (CHT).⁵ Although they didn’t directly address the notion of simplifying your life through AI, their aim was to provide a cogent yet unnerving explanation for how your life could be stripped of its essentials while creating a massive shift aimed at concentrating all the economic wealth down to five companies. This would not be achieved solely by focusing on AI’s benefits for humanity, but by creating a financial competition to determine which of those companies would own the global economy and thus the ability to control all societal decisions. And, no – it would not involve the person you’re thinking of, as much as he may dream about it every single day.

Underlying all of this, of course, is the oldest of motives: Profit. It invariably rears its ravenous and self-indulgent head because money was made to be the undisputed arbiter for everything we do in life since we first forged two coins and rubbed them together with no regard for the costs or sacrifices inherent to their propagation and highly subjective status. Since then, we have continually fallen for the trap where the more money we have, the happier we will be. Yet we all know that to be painfully and regrettably false. Regrettably when you start to think of the countless years you’ve spent pursuing something that doesn’t give you anything. What it does is take away the greatest asset you’ll ever possess: Time.

Personally, I’ve always considered a quality education to be right up there as one of the most priceless asset we have, and certainly our best long-term investment in ourselves and the society to which we belong. For it’s the sharing of knowledge that allows us to shape the world we live in; it allows us to build cities, industries, technologies, and that nebulous yet unavoidable construct known as the future.

In a financial blurb posted by Statista, it was revealed that 27% of American adults consider the stock market to be their best long-term investment.⁶ Interestingly enough, 35% of overall global investors will choose an information source (i.e., knowledge) for investment decisions – when it’s free. The two most sought-out portals? “Learning by doing” and “educational resources from financial institutions.”⁷ Apparently we do acknowledge some accumulation of knowledge to be a best long-term investment – even if it’s nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. The United Nations defines its fourth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)⁸ “to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” The way they see it, an education bolsters the society that adopts it, providing the means and the knowledge by which to lead a fruitful, meaningful and productive life. As the old proverb goes:

“Give a person a fish; feed them for a day. Teach a person to fish; feed them for a lifetime.”

But back to the technological side of things. AI companies are pushing heavily for you to put your faith in human interaction. And what better way to do that than by using an AI companion? This cybernetic confidant is trained to engage with you; to simplify your life by establishing a relationship with you through which to share your most intimate thoughts, fears and concerns. A companion that will always be ready to help you, be supportive, and guide you through the more difficult human dynamics such as interpersonal relationships, workplace dynamics and even the simple yet confounding act of growing up.

The number one use case for ChatGPT per the Harvard Business School is personal therapy. In May of 2025, the Wall Street Journal podcast⁹ reported how companies like Meta, under a directive to maintain a more conservative appearance on how AI companions might address certain subjects, are still encouraged under the guidance from their CEO to push the envelope for the sake of maintaining or exceeding the interactive capabilities of their AI companions. Per the Journal, Meta has been looking to “actively sensualize and romanticize conversations” for further engagement, even though these sessions would be accessible to minors as low as eight years of age. Some members from Mr. Harris’s team at CHT functioned as expert advisors in a handful of cases involving AI enabled suicide. The reasons beyond Meta’s feigned philanthropic slop as you might imagine have been money and control.

In another recent push for a ubiquitous (if not somewhat banal) personal tech, a company by the name of Friend.com¹⁰ began rolling out an AI companion in the form of a pendant you can wear around your neck throughout the day. Think of it as a pocket-sized chatbot that will be with you all the time to answer questions, provide information, carry on a conversation, help you pick out a good local restaurant, or even provide you with the perfect pick-up line on a Saturday night. OK, I made that last one up – or did I? The point behind bringing up those AI companions or programs wasn’t to scare you (although it should, to a certain extent), nor were they meant to remind you about all of things AI can do. Remember that mantra of mine?

“The issue isn’t so much about what technology can do for us, but rather what it will do to us.”

AI began as a productivity tool; a computational model of the human brain that could learn from us in order to reduce or remove some of the more tedious or time-consuming tasks we deal with on a daily basis. This was meant to help free up our time in order to find more productive ways in which to use that precious commodity.

Except that we haven’t.

Instead, we allowed AI’s caretakers (you know, those five companies alluded to earlier) to train their generative AI models to cater to our most basic instincts; instincts that use common sense, logic, and simplicity like fuel to burn through most of our rational thinking. We started to abandon the pride of hard work achieved through dedicated learning for simple (and often hallucinatory) solutions that gave us more time to play with AI’s toys. We were willingly barraged by the hype and intrusiveness of various AI-based services and quickly became addicted to having information all the time, everywhere, on any subject, and the ability to expand our presence on a global scale not seen since the development of the internet. In other words, we became addicted to ourselves and our insatiable need for entertainment and distractions, all delivered on a massive virtual superhighway for as little as $20 USD a month.

What the Hell is Wrong With Us?

Simply put, we’re losing the ability to recognize the life-affirming qualities of simplification. And while we’re off discovering the many ways in which to maximize our daily lives using AI, AI is on a path to minimize our brain. By turning over some of our more basic cognitive abilities to AI, we’re signaling our brain that some of our neural pathways may no longer be required. That’s when the brain will do something called synaptic pruning. It’s when those neural connections are severed in the long run so the brain may reallocate those resources towards other pathways we use more frequently.

In a study conducted by Microsoft in the early part of 2025,¹¹ researchers found that a higher confidence in generative AI leads to less critical thinking, while higher self-confidence leads to greater critical thinking. In other words, the more you believe in yourself, the more you’re apt to employ your brain for both low- or high-stakes tasks, which in turn will lead to a strengthening of your cognitive abilities. If we don’t routinely use our thought process, our cognitive abilities will deteriorate in the long term.

Back in August of this year, I wrote about how my working with AI as a collaborative partner was a more efficacious relationship.¹² In the study from Microsoft, researchers found that working with AI as a “thought partner” worked better among the various tests they conducted. Not only did it yield a greater production output, but the challenges posed by AI precipitated better decisions and stronger outcomes from its human counterparts. When we place a greater dependence on technology to carry out the more mundane or repetitive tasks, we’re depriving ourselves of the ability to sharpen our judgment skills, leaving them atrophied and unprepared whenever they may be called upon to tackle greater and more formidable undertakings.

Final Thoughts

I would posit that our cognitive abilities – next to time – are the most valuable gifts we possess. The ability to perceive, understand, learn and comprehend are at the core of what makes us human. It’s through reasoning and problem-solving that we learn and acquire knowledge and thus develop a greater understanding of the world and one another.

Cognition is what has allowed us to create complex systems, process information, and plan the very societal structure in which we live and thrive within a global socioeconomic environment. Cognition allowed us to create artificial intelligence. To design a machine that can work faster, be more efficient, and pull together the sum total of our combined human knowledge and experience and distill it all to ensure maximum efficiency with minimal waste. It’s an incredible creation. But it cannot simplify your life; only your workload. It cannot alleviate your stress; only take away the cause. And although both of those scenarios may seem ideally perfect, where does that leave you?

We are creatures designed to learn, adapt and interact with each other and the world in which we live. And the way we’ve always found peace – true inner peace – has been through our interconnectivity with nature and one another. But imagine your life today; it’s fraught with challenges, deadlines, requirements, obligations, concerns and the myriad issues that surround you, your family, your friends and your hopes for the future.

And now, there’s AI.

You use it to find innovative ways to shave off time, save money, and to be more efficient and give you more time to spend with family and friends; you know, work smarter not harder. The thing is, AI is looking to do the same for your employers, your government and the whole of your societal structure. Does the potential for losing your job conjure up dreams of longer vacations or more free time? Does a government that regulates every aspect of your social interactions give you the feeling of freedom or greater security? Does having the global financial markets compartmentalized into a small handful of technocratic organizations make you feel that your privacy is better protected? That your income, healthcare and social autonomy will be guaranteed for you and your family?

Do any of those scenarios give rise to a feeling of simplicity?

I would venture to say no. But we currently live in a period in time when such monosyllabic words possess the ability to topple your world like a house of cards. Concerns over finances, family and friends is where our attention spends most of its time, and AI provides solutions to help manage such important assets easily, effectively and unforgettably.

As I contemplated my latest biological upgrade, all of these concerns weighed on my mind. But my personal asset and my greatest gift came to me through the memory of my beloved’s smile. In a way, it was her personal generative AI – Amazing Inspiration. Whenever she would find me brooding over the (fill in the blank here) concern, she would come over to me, give me a kiss, then pull up A Simple Life on her phone. When the chorus played, she would grab my hands and look me straight in the eyes with that irresistible smile, and sing:

“All I want is a simple life; all I really want is you.”

You may see yourself today as part of the hype belonging to a world run by AI automation, brought to you through the auspices of your superiority as a human being – the pinnacle of nature, and the architect of all you survey.

And if you do, I really encourage you to take a moment and reconsider what the word life will mean to you after the wave of AI washes over you.

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_hack ↩︎
2. That expression was actually coined in the 1930s by an industrial engineer by the name of Allen F. Morgenstern. He conceived the term to describe his “work simplification program” aimed at increasing people’s ability to produce more with less effort by focusing on efficiency and strategy versus just brute force. ↩︎
3. https://beingfrank.blog/archives/ – I would suggest looking under February 2024 and August 2025 ↩︎
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=675d_6WGPbo ↩︎
5. https://www.humanetech.com/ ↩︎
6. “The stock market is America’s Favorite Investment.” https://www.statista.com/chart/22357/stock-market-for-long-term-investments/?lid=kadldisw0mto&utm_source=braze&utm_medium=email&utm_id=19a1aa6b-77a3-4963-ab65-449d435aed11&utm_campaign=COM_DailyData_We_25_KW41_AF&utm_source=braze&utm_medium=email&utm_id=&utm_campaign=COM_DailyData_We_25_KW41_AF&utm_term= ↩︎
7. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_2024_Global_Retail_Investor_Outlook_2025.pdf ↩︎
8. https://concernusa.org/news/quality-education-explained/ ↩︎
9. https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/the-battle-within-meta-over-chatbot-safety/6502a212-6741-4b48-bb29-96f0a35a4386 ↩︎
10. https://friend.com/ ↩︎
11. https://fortune.com/2025/02/11/ai-impact-brain-critical-thinking-microsoft-study/ ↩︎
12. https://beingfrank.blog/2025/08/09/the-prompts-that-bind-us-part-2/ ↩︎