Road To Forge

Tag: learning

  • Everyone Says AI Is Making Us Stupid. I Think It Is Making Me Smarter.

    By Bogdan — RoadToForge

    There is a conversation happening right now about artificial intelligence and human intelligence.

    A lot of people are worried.

    They say AI will make us lazy. Make us stop thinking. Make us dependent on machines for answers we used to find ourselves.

    I understand the concern.

    But after two months of using AI every single day — I disagree.

    And I want to explain why.

    It has made me think more. Not less.

    Since I started using AI as a creative partner I read more carefully. I express myself more clearly. I research things I would never have looked up before. I question information rather than just accepting it.

    Because when you use AI as a thinking partner — not just an answer machine — it demands more from you. Not less.

    What surprised me most is what it actually feels like to use it properly. It feels like having a creative partner. One that is always available. Always focused. Always ready to take your idea seriously and help you build it into something real. Not a replacement for your thinking. A companion to it.

    And along the way I also discovered something I did not expect. AI makes mistakes. Confidently. Sometimes spectacularly. I came in thinking this was an all knowing intelligence with absolute answers. It is not. It is a tool. A remarkable tool. But it needs you. Your judgment. Your instinct. Your ability to question what it tells you and push back when something feels wrong. Without that human input the tool produces mediocre results at best and wrong answers at worst.

    That realisation actually made me more confident. Not less. Because it meant I was never just following instructions. I was always in charge.

    The people who will get stupider from AI are the ones who stop thinking and just copy answers.

    The people who will get smarter are the ones who use it to think harder and reach further than they could before.

    But here is what really excites me.

    AI is closing a gap that has existed for a very long time.

    Before AI — creating quality content, starting a business, learning a new skill, building something from nothing — all of it required resources that most ordinary people simply did not have.

    Money. Time. Education. Connections. Equipment. Training.

    A truck driver with an idea and a phone could not compete with a professional animation studio. A person without a marketing degree could not build a brand. Someone without years of technical training could not produce educational video content.

    That gap was real. And it kept a lot of talented people on the wrong side of it.

    AI is changing that.

    Not perfectly. Not instantly. But meaningfully.

    I am a truck driver.

    I work long shifts. I have three children. I have no film school background. No animation training. No marketing degree. No business experience.

    Two months ago I had an idea and a phone.

    Today I am running content channels. Writing a blog. Building a brand. Analysing audience data. Creating animated educational videos that adults say could be shown in classrooms.

    None of that was possible for someone like me two years ago.

    AI gave me the tools. But I brought the idea. The story. The persistence. The creativity. The lived experience that no algorithm can replicate.

    That is the honest truth about what AI actually does.

    It does not replace what makes you human.

    It removes the technical barriers that were stopping you from expressing it.

    And the specialists?

    The person with ten years of Photoshop experience. The professional scriptwriter. The trained animator.

    They still have advantages. Real ones. Experience matters. Craft matters. Depth matters.

    But the gap between them and an ordinary curious person with a good idea — that gap is closing faster than anyone expected.

    And I think that is mostly a good thing.

    Because talent was never equally distributed by background or privilege.

    So no.

    AI is not making us stupid.

    Used well — it is making some of us smarter, faster, more capable and more creative than we ever thought possible.

    The question is not whether to use it.

    The question is what you bring to it.

    — Bogdan

  • Two Months Is a Newborn Baby

    By Bogdan — RoadToForge

    There is something I have noticed about the way people approach new things.

    They start. They work hard for a few weeks. And then — when the results do not come immediately — they stop. They tell themselves it is not working. That they are not cut out for it. That maybe it was a bad idea after all.

    What they do not realise is that two months in — you are a newborn baby.

    Think about your job for a moment.

    When you started any job you have ever had — did you walk in on day one expecting to be exceptional? Did you give yourself two months and then quit because you were not yet the best person in the building?

    Of course not.

    You went there to learn. To earn. To grow slowly over time. You gave it years without even thinking about it. You showed up every day and you got better gradually without putting a deadline on it.

    But when we start something creative — a YouTube channel, a business, a new skill — suddenly we expect results in weeks. One month in and we are checking the numbers obsessively. Two months in and we are questioning everything. Three months in and if we have not seen dramatic results we are already thinking about giving up.

    Why do we do that?

    We would never quit a job after two months because we were not yet the best employee. But we quit creative projects constantly for exactly that reason.

    The gym is a perfect example.

    Two months of training and you feel better. You are sleeping better. Your energy is higher. But you look in the mirror and the dramatic change is not yet visible. Most people stop at exactly this point.

    But the people who stay — one year, two years, three years — they become unrecognisable from where they started. Not because they had special talent. Because they refused to quit before the results had time to arrive.

    The milestones.

    I think about progress in milestones. Real ones. Honest ones. Not the ones social media would have you believe in.

    The two month milestone — you are a newborn baby. You can barely lift your head. Everything is new and overwhelming. Results? None visible yet. But the foundation is being laid whether you can see it or not. Nobody looks at a two month old baby and says — why is it not walking yet? Why is it not talking? This is clearly not working. And yet we say exactly that about everything else we start.

    The six month milestone — the first real step. You are starting to sit up. Starting to recognise what works and what does not. The first signs that something is genuinely developing. This is the first big hurdle. Most people never reach it. The ones who do start to feel something shift.

    The one year milestone — first steps. Wobbly. Uncertain. But moving forward independently now. You have made enough mistakes to start avoiding the obvious ones. You can feel yourself improving even when the numbers do not yet show it.

    The two year milestone — running. Not perfectly. Still falling sometimes. But genuinely moving with confidence now. Real visible improvement. People who knew you at the start can see the difference clearly.

    The three year milestone — this is where it becomes real. This is where the gap opens permanently between you and everyone who quit at month two. You are talking in full sentences now. Communicating clearly. People can see who you are becoming.

    Every single thing I have ever learned in my life has followed this exact pattern.

    When I started boxing I barely knew how to hold my hands up for the first few months. Raw. Awkward. Getting it wrong constantly. Even at the six month milestone I was still a baby. I had just barely started to grasp the basics. A very raw understanding of how things worked. Nothing more.

    Judo was the same.

    And truck driving. I have been a truck driver for eleven years now. Eleven years. But I remember clearly what the six month milestone felt like. Driving a large truck through Central London. Tight streets. Busy junctions. Heart racing. Genuinely nervous. Still making mistakes. Still shaky in difficult situations.

    Now I drive through Central London without even thinking about it. The decisions happen automatically. The instincts are built in. What once felt impossible now feels completely natural.

    But it took eleven years to get here. And at two months I was a complete newborn.

    In trucking most companies require three years of experience before they trust you with their vehicles. Not six months. Not one year. Three years. Because they know that under three years you are still making expensive mistakes. Insurance costs more for drivers under three years for exactly this reason.

    After the three year milestone something fundamental changes. The experience is in your hands. In your instincts. In how you read situations before they become problems.

    I am building a children’s educational cartoon channel right now.

    I started a few months ago with no experience. No technical background. No team. Just a phone and a determination not to watch another opportunity pass me by.

    I am around two months in now.

    And already — even as I write this — my brain plays tricks on me some days. Maybe this is pointless. Maybe I am wasting my time. I am improving but I am not seeing the results I hoped for yet.

    And I catch myself doing what most people do at this stage — blaming outside things. The algorithm. The platform. The timing. Anything external. When the honest truth is simply that I have not been in the game long enough yet. I have not put in enough time. I am still a newborn.

    So let me be honest with you. As much as I am writing this for you — I am writing it for myself.

    We all go through this. Every single person who has ever started something new has had those days where the brain whispers that it might be pointless. That the results should have come by now.

    They should not have come by now. It has been around two months. You are still a newborn.

    My first episode was rough. Really rough. But I posted it anyway. And I kept going. The gap between episode one and episode eleven is already significant. And I am still only at the two month milestone. If the quality has improved this much in two months — just imagine what three years looks like.

    Something is starting to click.

    If you are at the two month milestone of something new — something you genuinely believe in — stay.

    Think about it honestly. You would not quit a job after two months. You would not leave the gym after six weeks because the mirror has not changed yet.

    So why are you expecting this to be different?

    Reach the six month milestone first. Then aim for one year. Then two. Then three.

    The people who reach the three year milestone are simply the ones who refused to quit at two months.

    Nobody becomes exceptional quickly. They just stay longer than everyone else.

    Two months is a newborn baby.

    Give it time.

    — Bogdan