image is generated by ChatGPT 4o, it is its idea of “from setting for mid to become excellent”

From a general mid to conditional mid

During my lunch today, I clicked on this video, the guy reacted to a post titled “The Who Cares Era.” Some dots connected in my head, so here you go, this is what came out of that connection.

Since I started using AI last year, my feeling has been shifting from empowerment to uneasy clarity. This got me curiously eager to figure out who I am and what I actually want in this AI-powered world at my fingertips as a researcher.

The post said everyone can now achieve something “good enough” with AI. It hit me hard, and I thought: am I becoming a mid? It’s like swallowing a cheap fish oil, fishy and uncomfortably big.

I take a moment to reflect on my past. Honestly, nothing in my environment inspired me toward excellence (maybe a few things did, but I ignored them because they weren’t my interests anyway). Why am I suddenly questioning my authenticity and feeling uncertain about my choices? Aging might be one factor, but probably it’s more because using AI let me see myself clearly. When I use LLM, I am learning about myself. AI is like a mirror, it reflects what I do (not) think and want. It somehow give me the chance to understand myself better. Think about it, I can easily produce something that I half-ass know, just like the post described:

Over the course of two months, we went from something smart that would demand a listener’s attention in a way that was challenging and new to something that sounded like every other thing: some dude talking to some other dude about apps that some third dude would half-listen-to at 2x speed while texting a fourth dude about plans for later.

Reading this made me feel like being secretly watched through an invisible camera. I’ve done similar things, seen others do too. Everything feels very mid now. I could use NotebookLLM to summarize papers for quick “insights,” and ask ChatGPT to turn those insights into drafts, and let Elicit generate literature reviews to provide ‘evidence’ to support whatever ChatGPT generated. Then I stitch it all together and call it mine. Maybe I can tweak a bit here and there and submit it and get published. Then I can be a pretty productive researcher. But it doesn’t sit right with me, not because I’m morally superior or anything like that, but because I genuinely like what I’m doing right now and don’t want to settle for mid.

That brings up another point: when is it okay to be mid? Everyone has routine or unimportant stuff they have to do every day. To me, that’s when using AI or being mid is okay. But what’s unimportant is up to you. Next time you think “how can I delegate this to AI?” pause and also ask yourself, “What does this delegation say about what I value, trust, or am willing to offload?” This reflexive dialogue is critical to make deliberate decisions about how you interact with AI. Picture a slider: one end totally erodes your capability, the other completely empowers your growth. You need to consciously set your position on this slider.

It’s tempting to focus only on efficiency and effectiveness, forgetting that the struggle and inconvenience actually matter (they help you learn and become excellent). To be mid or not is conditional, and it’s your decision. Pause, be real with yourself, and choose intentionally.