The Shift 🔀
I've noticed a subtle psychological shift in my workday lately. I am now regularly "collaborating" with two or three different AI Agents a day. I'm context-switching between Kiro, Copilot, and Antigravity, orchestrating complex builds.
On paper, I'm more "connected" than ever. The chat windows are scrolling, the text is flying, and the work is getting done.
The Funk 😶
But last week, I hit a wall. I felt a strange kind of "digital chill" — a funk I couldn't shake. I realized that for 8 hours a day, I am speaking "Computer."
- "Refactor this."
- "Check the context."
- "No, use the desktop server."
It is a mode of communication that is imperative, transactional, and stripped of all humanity. Even my usual go-to — calm meditation music — started to feel depressing. It just made the silence of the room feel vaster.
The Anchor ⚓
My only respite was my lunch break with my husband. Those 30 minutes of messy, unstructured, human conversation felt like coming up for air.
The Fix (Background Humanity) 🎙️
I realized I didn't need "focus"; I needed presence. I started playing podcasts in the background. I'm not even really listening to the content — half the time I miss the story because I'm deep in code.
But having the sound of human voices — the laughter, the interruptions, the imperfect cadence of people talking — became the antidote to the sterile perfection of the AI text stream.
The Takeaway
As we move into this era of "Agentic Work," we have to be careful not to isolate our own operating systems. The AI speaks in logic. We need to surround ourselves with life. If you're feeling that "AI Funk," try turning off the lo-fi beats and turning on a conversation.
#FutureOfWork #AI #MentalHealth #RemoteWork #DesignEngineer #HumanInTheLoop