In the past, I often had to tell my kids things like “No, we can’t, come to the office with me, I have to finish some work.” That’s not the case anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thinking about the last few months, I’ve managed to build a workflow on my iPhone where, with tools like Claude, Git, Xcode Cloud and TestFlight, I can run a full iOS development cycle. When I need to, I do it from there, on the road or at the park with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ll admit it openly, for years I used my iPhone, iPad and, partly, my Mac well below their potential. Not because I underestimated them, but because I never found the right balance in the software I was using. I tried building my own too, but when you have a mortgage to pay, choices fall elsewhere, and those ideas often never got developed or, worse, only got sketched out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the current generation of AI, with more advanced automation and with tools like Claude Code, I don’t hesitate to say that the way I use these devices has changed radically. I feel more stimulated, both in how I use them and in approaches I couldn’t even imagine. Now I feel like I’m using my iPhone and iPad for everything they can actually do, instead of just the part I had gotten used to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An app I built myself led me to use Shortcuts and the Action Button on my iPhone much better. Then there’s my passion for Sudoku, Kakuro and, more recently, Binary and Hashi. Another app of mine creates the grids and turns them into ebooks to write on, even printable if I want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There’s also something I care about, being able to calculate in my head. I love numbers and, even though I think about it from time to time, I wasn’t sure I was actually training. By chance I came across a soroban, the Japanese abacus, and bought one, and from there I discovered anzan, the mental calculation built on that tool. I made myself a small game to practice, with data (no gamification) to understand how I’m progressing toward anzan. I’d wanted to do it for a long time, but that time always went to something else. Now it exists, and I use it. And maybe it’s useful to me the way it could be to many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My case, as a coder, is different, because I can build my own tools. For others it isn’t, no use denying it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Talking with people through work, volunteering or just casual chats with friends and acquaintances, I’ve noticed something. Without going into details, someone I know through work has a lot of bureaucracy to manage, with plenty of data and formulas. AI could lend a hand, but the problem comes before that. Many software tools, technically deterministic because they’re made of rules, data entry and calculations, are barely used, and the most advanced thing is often an Excel sheet, only because the person takes care of it personally. Otherwise it would come down to paper alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around this person, many people, maybe because of past experiences, tend to be wary and struggle to use this kind of software, let alone AI. And that makes me think about how much could change. Often the tool exists, but it’s used little, halfway, or even badly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Often the missing piece is method and, if we want to be more concrete, thinking. Doing is comfortable. You know it, it takes effort but you see results right away. A method costs more at the start and the results come later. If you remember, in a different context I talked about doing for the sake of doing. That idea shows up here too, with higher risks, because without a method, over the medium term, situations tend to get worse, for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And thinking matters afterward too, to keep the tool alive, update procedures, fill it the way it should be filled and not leave it as it was the day it was set up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In all this I think of those who praise AI and those who demonize it. In both cases the gaze, sometimes in excessive detail, stops at the tool and not at the thinking that comes before it. The ironic part is that this thought came to me from people who are very critical of AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don’t want to be repetitive about AI, but there’s one place where it really counts, when its questions and observations stimulate my thinking. Between humans it’s entirely possible, but often neglected, or impossible because of distance and other logistics. On this, AI gets me to say “damn, that’s true,” and from there I develop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A recent example is the making of this post. I had an explanation of my own about why some people don’t change. The AI, Claude, pointed out that, written that way, it was a judgment and there was no way to prove it wrong. At that point I stopped. I rethought it, rewrote the draft and got help with the editing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cognitive mirror, as a concept, tends to stimulate and switch on parts of thinking that are often there but dormant. Some people manage it, but they aren’t always next to us. Maybe AI can help. Here I don’t mean automation or coding. I mean something that works on thinking, stimulates it, helps keep it alive, train it and push it to generate more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible either. I think of people who have well-built tools and use them little. For them, maybe, the most useful AI at first is a conversation partner that helps look at how they work and make better use of what’s already there. A workflow with AI, if needed, comes after.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I often had to tell my kids \u201cCome to the office with me, I have to finish some work.\u201d Today that happens far less, and a lot of it comes down to tools I already had in my pocket and used halfway. Talking with other people, I noticed the same pattern, well-built tools used little or badly. <\/p>\n
Where does it really get stuck? And what can AI do, if it isn\u2019t the answer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,112],"tags":[2257,1728,2238,2229,2236,2233,2231],"class_list":["post-550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-thoughts","category-pragmatism","tag-automation","tag-criticalthinking","tag-digitaltools","tag-humancenteredai","tag-iosdevelopment","tag-mentalmath","tag-methodology"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":551,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions\/551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}