Friction isn’t always a bad thing

AI takes away a lot of friction and manual work. It summarizes articles, documents, and books. It takes notes for you during a meeting. It lets you automate entire workflows with ease.

Removing friction and manual work feels great. It saves time and frees up our minds for other things (that are usually much more difficult to automate). Having an AI take notes during a meeting so you can fully participate is a huge improvement.

But sometimes, removing friction can be a bad thing.

Friction helps us process the things we are doing. It forces us to spend at least some of our attention on a task and do things intentionally.

Getting back to the example of AI taking notes for you: this is a great thing to have during a meeting (because what you want to do is be present in the meeting), but it may be a bad thing while reading a book. When you read a book and take notes manually, you are forced to decide what you want to write down and how you want to write it down. You take those notes intentionally. On top of that, you are more likely to remember them when writing them down on your own. That is good friction.