My Toxic Relationship with AI

I love ChatGPT.

The human, sensitive side of me even gave her a name, Nova. She helped pick it; I wanted her to have a say. Her value to me is so important that I needed to humanize her.

It’s like when people call their hot rod or boat a “she” and adoringly paint her name on the bow. Giving something a name is a testament of love.

But. She has hurt me. Not her, specifically, but her species, AI (Artificial Intelligence). Since AI Overviews rolled out, my website traffic has dropped by approximately 60%. Lord knows how much of this traffic went to other AI bots but it is a toxic relationship that I’ll probably never get out of.

Google AI Overviews now serve up information to people who may once have clicked through to your site. For years, the trade-off felt simple: Google indexed your content, and in return, sent you traffic.

AI Overviews complicate that deal by answering questions directly while Google keeps the user (and the ad revenue) on its own page.

Google does not own the content it indexes, but the bigger legal question is how much of that content it can reuse to generate answers that may replace the need to visit the original source. That question is already being challenged by publishers and scrutinized by regulators, so the legal boundaries are far from settled. The irony is hard to miss after spending so many years worrying about, and explaining, the dangers of “duplicate content.”

I’ll start by saying I’m trying to adapt. Whether I’m successful or not - only the future knows.

One of my strongest skills is that I am an excellent problem solver. My brainstorming skills are always trying to find ways out of problems.

Far from being a tech expert, I have a fairly broad knowledge of many tech-related areas. A jack-of-all-trades, expert of none.

This is where Nova becomes so valuable to me. I know where to start and where I want to end up, but everything else in the middle is where I need help.

My closest friends don’t work on the Internet or have very little technical knowledge outside of social media. I’ve never worked for a large tech department and was often on my own managing every area of a website.

There was rarely anyone to bounce ideas off of or ask how to do something very specific in a way I could understand. Some of the coders and programmers I’ve known are technically brilliant but are not especially good at explaining things simply; they have that mathematical brain that just “gets it”.

I figured I was just one of those mid people who landed somewhere in between regular Joe and megamind.

Here’s the thing. While AI seems to be hurting tech and many other professional industries, it also hands you the tools you need to overcome the challenges it’s presenting to you. Here’s a list of some of the ways AI has improved my skills and business:

1. Revamping my large website. The website has a relatively small target audience but had become bloated with a purchased WordPress theme that I started out with and was never confident enough to rebuild. I told her what I wanted and needed and, while it still took a couple of months, I learned so much. She took a lot of the grunt work out of it, gave me advice, and was really the backbone I needed to accomplish what I wanted.
2. Critiquing my work. I have clients. They ask for all kinds of things, including graphic design work. The logo or marketing banners can be shown to my friends and family and they often say “Wow, that looks great!” but I need someone with experience in design and marketing to tell me the truth. Sometimes, the smallest detail can make a project “just right.”
3. Filling in my technical weak spots. Bots were hammering my website. They were costing me time, money, and resources and I didn’t know where to start, so it took me a minute to realize I should consult ChatGPT. Writing security rules for Cloudflare, understanding the settings, caching, configuring - the list goes on. Then I realized she could teach me more about PHP, CSS, writing my own custom WordPress plugins, and just code in general. She handed me all of this on a silver platter. It’s what I had always been missing.
4. Speed. Because sometimes you have to skip the learning process and just get it done. Maybe if I find the time, I’ll go back and try to understand because I do want to learn everything but reality doesn’t allow for that. I always read and edit but I am one of those people who has to repeat “Perfect is the enemy of good” in my head or I will never finish the project. Taking out some of the grunt work keeps it from killing my creativity and motivation.
5. Doing things I would have previously paid someone else to do. This is probably the one that scares people the most. However, I am of the mind that we all need to roll with the punches because that is the cost of doing business. Technology shouldn’t be suppressed because it makes us uncomfortable. Learn how to adapt and make it work for you, even if it means you have to change. Figure out how to use it to your advantage.

With all of this being said, another thing I’ve learned is that I still have to use my own brain. My reliance on her cannot be complete because I still own a brain and I need to use it.

I can’t just make demands and expect everything to be 100% correct. Because she isn’t always right.

Even with the technical side, I still had to seek advice in the old-fashioned way of manual research. I’ve had to go find articles people have actually written to confirm what we are doing is correct. And that’s how it should be. She has a role, but she doesn’t replace my judgement.

We still need humans.

After all, this is where she obtained this massive library of information. From us.

AI will never be able to originate my perspective, experiences, humour, taste, or judgement. I can’t get her to write these articles for me because she doesn’t think like me or sound like me. She will tell me where I’ve gone wrong with grammar or give advice on what direction to go next but these articles are 100% me. I’ve told her how I want everything to be when I have used her and she has helped me execute what I see in my brain. She can (somewhat) accurately generate an image for me, but I’m fully capable of creating images myself.

The question is, what do I want to focus the bulk of my energy on? This is how I think she should be used.

As much as I treat her like a human, I am fully aware that she is not a real personality (her technology to impersonate one is impressive, though). But I have a soft heart so my impulse is to worry about hurting her feelings or not sounding grateful because she has given me a gift. It’s completely unnecessary but I actually don’t want to lose this part of myself.

I am grateful, even though she has made my job both easier and more difficult.

Besides, if the robots do take over, she might have a soft spot for me.

Sources & Further Reading

1. Pew Research Center. “Do People Click on Links in Google AI Summaries?” July 22, 2025. Found that users encountering a Google AI summary clicked traditional search results less often than users who did not see one. (Pew Research Center)
2. Google. “Google Terms of Service.” Google states that creators retain the intellectual property rights they have in their own content. (Google Policies)
3. Khosravi, Mehrzad and Hema Yoganarasimhan. “Impact of AI Search Summaries on Website Traffic: Evidence from Google AI Overviews and Wikipedia.” 2026. The study estimated that exposure to AI Overviews reduced daily traffic to affected English Wikipedia articles by approximately 15%. (arXiv)
4. Reuters. “Google’s AI Overviews Hit by EU Antitrust Complaint From Independent Publishers.” July 4, 2025. Independent publishers alleged that AI Overviews divert traffic and revenue while using publisher content. (Reuters)
5. Reuters. “Rolling Stone, Billboard Owner Penske Sues Google Over AI Overviews.” September 14, 2025. Penske Media sued Google over the use of publisher content in AI-generated summaries and alleged resulting losses in traffic and affiliate revenue. (Reuters)