Hello there, dear reader of mine, I have a confession to make. I, Monique Kwachou, writer, holder of a doctorate, educational counsellor, and all the things you know me for, use Artificial Intelligence, AKA AI. I feel like a lot of us don’t want to confess that. I mean, it is not exactly a secret. We all know we use it, but it seems we are all supposed to pretend we don’t. And when we are upfront that we use it, we tend to be vague about how exactly, and how much. Why? Because it raises questions about our intelligence and the originality of our work, and it casts doubt on our ability as a whole. Suddenly, every single thing you have written is scrutinised. Is it AI, or is it you? How much of your thinking is actually yours? I have been musing on the complexity of being wary of AI dependency and cognizant of the risks it poses, while also understanding its usefulness to our generation and the fact that it is not as new as we make it seem. And as with most of my musings, I thought to put this out there for public engagement. First, I must admit that I am writing this from a position of some privilege. Have you come across the tweet that says the millennial African parent’s version of “Oh, I used to walk 5 kilometres to school and back. You people are so lazy, you don’t know how easy you have it” is going to be us telling our children, “I used to research without AI. You kids don’t know how easy you have it”? Well, as a millennial, I can even say I used to research without Google. Because millennials, we have a flex, okay? We did libraries. I know how to use a library. I know the order in which the books are placed on the shelves, because we actually had to find them ourselves. We came of age with the internet. We used Ask Jeeves before there was Google, then Google came and we learned to Google things, all the way to the point that we are now using AI. I think that is partly why I have some confidence about where my own thinking ends and where the assistance begins, and the audacity to put these musings out there. Having earned my PhD before generative AI was a thing, there is little room for anyone to question whether I’m smart, myself included. So I feel comparatively safe making this confession and discussing what I think is being overlooked in conversations about AI use and dependency. And yet, even with that relative security in my own ability, that niggling voice of interrogation still lingers. Are you using AI too much? Are you using AI ethically? Should you have done this without any assistance? And the guilt around it.|So I needed to address it and be honest about my own use of AI. But I also wanted to add something to this whole AI conversation that I don’t think we are talking about enough. Something about the way we are talking about AI right now keeps reminding me of what I see all the time in development work and social justice work. People complain about the fruit of the issue, the leaves, what we can see at the top of the tree, but they do not actually want to address the root. And if you don’t want to ask why the thing is happening in the first place, I don’t think you really want to solve the problem. That’s what I generally believe, anyway. With AI, the leaves are everywhere. There are countless books being published with fake authors, AI-rendered flyers are like eyesores across our feeds, and both our kids and our elderly are taking AI videos and answers as fact. And don’t forget the ever-present environmental threat of the data centres that keep these things running. I get it. The widespread use of AI is concerning, and these problems are real and valid to criticise. That fact is not to be followed by a “but,” rather an “and.” AI poses countless problems, and still, the way discussions about its use are going feels puritanical and hypocritical. I’ve heard this kind of judgement before, from those who say people who have had bariatric surgery or use GLP-1s are on a “fake fitness journey,” or who accuse women who have C-sections of taking “the easy way out.” Those judgements not only ignore what would lead to such decisions, but also suggest there is some sort of award for taking the hard way even when assistance is available… like how we African women are often told to prove our worth by how much we endure or how much effort we have made to earn value, this rubs me wrong. And that is my problem with the AI conversation. I am seeing so much discussion about what AI is doing to us, and not nearly enough about why so many of us are reaching for it. I feel like we are blaming individuals for something that is systemic, and we know it. If we keep looking only at the leaves, we fail to see what is causing this dependence in the first place. So here is what I want to submit: the increasing AI usage and dependency we are so worried about has roots in the kind of world we have built and those roots must be examined. I have considered a few interconnected roots and invite you to consider them along with me. First, let’s be honest, this is a natural progression. The outsourcing our thinking is not new. People love to say, “We all have the same 24 hours.” We do not, and I think to even suggest that is gaslighting. I have somebody who comes and helps me clean my house twice a week. I am also a single woman without children. I do not have