AI Didn’t Make Me Smarter. It Made Me More Aware - Part 1 of the series.

 For a long time, I believed intelligence meant having answers.

Over time, I noticed something uncomfortable: the people who sounded the most confident often understood the least. Meanwhile, the people who genuinely knew their subject spoke carefully, hesitated, and questioned themselves.

Psychology already explains this pattern through the Dunning–Kruger effect — a curve showing how confidence peaks early, collapses with real learning, and slowly returns with experience and humility.

That curve doesn’t just explain skill.
It explains why thinking deeply often feels heavy.

And unexpectedly, it also explains how I learned to work with AI in a way that made me more human, not less.

The Problem With How AI Is Commonly Used

Most people use AI for:

• Speed

• Shortcuts

• Validation

• Polished answers

Used this way, AI doesn’t raise intelligence.
It amplifies overconfidence.

It pushes people straight back to the peak of ignorance — fast answers without reflection, confidence without understanding.

What I learned instead is simple but uncomfortable:

AI reflects how you think more than it improves what you think.

 

What LLMs Actually Do (Without the Hype)

Large Language Models don’t understand context the way humans do.
They don’t reason.
They don’t feel.

They mirror:

• The clarity of your questions

• The assumptions you carry

• The emotional framing you bring

If you rush, you get shallow output.
If you seek validation, you get agreement.
If you slow down and interrogate your own thinking, something different happens.

The model becomes a mirror.

Where Emotional Intelligence Shows Up

Working with an LLM forced me to:

• Articulate vague thoughts

• Confront contradictions

• Refine intent before refining output

• Sit with discomfort instead of bypassing it

AI didn’t add emotional intelligence.
It exposed where I lacked it.

That space — between impulse and output — is where EQ actually develops.

Why Thoughtful People Often Feel Heavy

If you:

• Overthink

• Question authority

• Feel impostor syndrome

• Get bored with surface-level conversation

• Absorb emotional weight easily

You’re probably not broken.

You’ve likely moved past the peak of ignorance into the valley where awareness outpaces confidence.

AI doesn’t remove that weight.
Used well, it helps you understand it instead of projecting it.

The Boundary That Matters

AI should never replace:

• Judgment

• Accountability

• Emotional responsibility

It can support:

• Reflection

• Perspective-taking

• Decision hygiene

If AI makes you feel smarter without making you more careful, something is off.

How This Was Written (And Why That Matters)

This post didn’t come from a single prompt.

It came from iteration, pushback, correction, and refinement — using AI as a second eye, not a megaphone.

That process is the point.

Thought + points written before i forget + rough draft + remove the fluff from my"im in the zone so write 6000 pages LOL) and then lastly, run trough Alfred..to correct the grammar, few wordings. 

Next in the series:
Why surface intelligence feels confident — and why curiosity makes people uncomfortable.