Why ADHD Is the Cheat Code of the AI Era

(airsugar.com)

4 points | by herbertl 6 hours ago ago

1 comments

  • jdw64 6 hours ago ago

    I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was in middle school. When I took medication, it made me feel bad and extremely sleepy, so I basically continued into adulthood with ADHD.

    I think the biggest problem with ADHD is not really about the AI era itself. It is more about regulating relationships with other people and maintaining focus. For example, it is fundamentally difficult for me to maintain concentration during exams, so I am not sure whether ADHD is actually an advantage.

    When I am coding, it does feel good to type something into AI and get an immediate response. But AI still seems weak at low-level code, so there are limits.

    I am not sure whether ADHD is really an advantage. For me, one of the biggest problems is that there are too many things in my head, and it is hard to organize them.

    It is always a bit sad and frustrating. Some people can write very concisely, but when I write, I often become long-winded and start connecting the topic to other topics. I know I should not do that, but if I force myself to stay on one narrow line, it no longer feels like myself. That makes consistent writing difficult.

    So I do not know whether ADHD is an advantage. Maybe it can be an advantage in some kinds of simple coding, but I am not sure. Because ADHD also affects memory, I think that even before the AI era, my workflow was already built around external memory. In my case, I often used search, collected examples of code that had worked before, built my own pattern repository, and then reused or pasted those patterns when needed. So for me, the AI era does not feel like a completely new change. It feels more like an extension of the workflow I was already using.

    This is really hard for me. In the AI era, ADHD might help if someone already enjoys coding. But for someone with ADHD who does not naturally enjoy coding, I think AI may actually make exploration harder.

    I am very sensitive to dopamine. When I code, I often keep a small toy next to me. The more ADHD someone is, the more vulnerable they may be to AI’s immediate responses. I am one of those vulnerable people. So I am not sure whether this should really be called an advantage.