ChatGPT and AI As An Augmentation of Human Thinking

I initially used ChatGPT the way most people do—figuring out clever things to ask, solving math problem memes on Facebook, or just playing around. I didn’t truly understand how powerful it was until I read a Reddit post about someone using it to identify cognitive distortions in their thinking. I thought that was brilliant.

At the time, I was dealing with some personal relationship issues, so I asked it to find cognitive distortions in my own thinking. Over time, I realized I could even ask it to reply in different therapeutic models, like Family Systems Therapy. I was also seeing a therapist (and to be clear, this isn’t a post discouraging people from therapy—therapists are incredibly valuable and offer insights that AI simply cannot). But I noticed that in 98% of cases, my therapist was telling me the same thing ChatGPT was telling me in terms of my cognitive distortions and thinking errors. Even my therapist jokingly said she was worried it would replace her.

Over time, I started using AI daily to process my thoughts about this relationship issue. It wasn’t just helping me identify thinking errors, it was also giving me new perspectives on my conversations. I even vented to it about how the other person was reacting.

Eventually, I learned how ChatGPT’s memory buffer worked—when conversations got too long, it would “forget” earlier parts of the discussion. I figured out that I could have it summarize our conversation and “save it to memory”, so those key takeaways carried over to my next chat.

Then, I started feeding it everything—text messages, my stock portfolio, business ideas, career plans, health strategies—pretty much everything I was doing in life. As scary as that might sound, it stopped being just a Google replacement and became an augmentation of my thinking process.

How I Use AI Today

Right now, I use ChatGPT for:

✅ Processing deep personal introspection (relationships, past experiences, emotional patterns)
✅ Strategizing career and business moves (leadership growth, performance improvements, strategic relationships)
✅ Analyzing and executing trading and investment strategies (tracking markets, tech momentum, macroeconomic shifts)
✅ Debriefing and refining my thinking in real-time (venting, brainstorming, execution planning)

Most recently, my nephew had an issue with his dentist. The dentist’s office originally promised him free services, but after the primary dentist left the practice, the new office refused to honor the agreement. I fed all the details into ChatGPT, and it helped me draft letters, brainstorm options for getting the old dentist to honor the agreement at her new office, or hold the current office accountable.

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Why AI is a Game Changer (And Why Most People Are Looking at It Wrong)

I think most companies completely misunderstand AI’s real power.

I keep hearing executives say AI will “augment staff and make them more efficient”, but they don’t actually understand what that should look like.

A lot of people assume AI will replace software engineers, marketers, and legal teams. They think AI will write all our code, design all our ads, or automate all legal research—but that’s short-sighted and, frankly, stupid.

Can ChatGPT write code? Yes.
Is that code perfect? Nope.
And because AI hallucinates, you still need an experienced engineer to debug it.

As shocking as this may sound, software engineering has very little to do with writing code. If that surprises you, that’s okay—just feed this blog post into ChatGPT, and it will explain it in detail. 😂

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The Real Value of AI

AI’s true value isn’t in replacing software engineers, paralegals, or writers.

The real game-changer is that AI becomes an augmentation of human thinking—an AI-driven second brain that helps refine ideas over time, strategize business and investments with evolving context, and turn conversations into execution plans.

This is where AI will have the biggest impact—not as a replacement for workers, but as a thought partner that amplifies human intelligence.

AI won’t replace engineers.
AI won’t replace writers.
AI won’t replace legal teams.

But people who know how to use AI to enhance their thinking will replace those who don’t.

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Final Thought

If you think AI is just about automating tasks, you’re missing the bigger picture.

The real revolution isn’t AI doing our work for us—it’s AI making us better at everything we do.