Is AI that toxic ex you just can’t forget about and can’t move on from?
For every task you get assigned, do you run back to your ex (AI) for help?
If someone suddenly asks you to center a div, do you instantly go back to your ex (AI) to solve it?
Why am I comparing AI with a toxic ex? No, I never had a toxic ex. But AI can sometimes behave like one.
Before anyone comes for me, this is not an anti-AI article. I use AI every day, probably more than I should. But while using it, I started noticing patterns that felt oddly familiar.
There was a time when solving a bug meant opening 15 tabs, reading Stack Overflow threads from 2014, watching random YouTube tutorials, and somehow finding the answer.
Now? One prompt. One answer. Done.
Helpful? Absolutely.
Dangerous? Maybe.
Because at some point, I realized something strange.
AI slowly became my first instinct. And that made me wonder: Are we using AI, or is AI slowly using us?
So here are a few traits that oddly align with a toxic ex.
At the end, you decide: Do you want AI as your ex or your next?
1. Always on Your Mind
AI is everywhere. And honestly, many of us are using it way too much.
Sometimes, if I think of an idea or task, my first instinct is: “Let me ask AI.” Earlier, my first instinct used to be: “Let me search it.”
That shift feels small, but it changes a lot. Let’s take an example. For a Dev Challenge like Gemma 4, do I immediately ask AI to generate an idea? Or do I spend some time thinking, searching, and exploring myself before asking AI to refine it?
Which sounds healthier to you? Sometimes I even open ChatGPT before opening Google.
And that honestly scares me a little. Because dependence happens slowly.
You don’t notice it until trying things alone starts feeling uncomfortable.
2. Still Buying Her Gifts (Subscriptions)
Many of us have way too many subscriptions. For me, it is ChatGPT only.
For others, it could be:
- Claude
- Cursor
- Gemini
- Copilot
- Perplexity
And the list keeps growing.
Every new AI tool launches with free tokens. Then the tokens expire. Then comes the subscription. Then another model releases and suddenly:
“This one writes better.”
“That one codes better.”
“This one vibes better.”
And before you know it, it starts feeling like collecting streaming subscriptions.
One for coding.
One for writing.
One because someone on Twitter said: “This model changed my life.”
And suddenly, we are still buying gifts for the toxic ex.
3. The Controlling Behavior
AI can sometimes feel weirdly controlling and possessive. Not in a scary way. But in a very validating way.
No matter what idea you bring, AI somehow makes it sound amazing. “This sounds like a great idea.” “This has huge potential.” “You should definitely pursue this.”
And suddenly your average idea starts sounding like a billion-dollar startup.
Sometimes that confidence feels nice. Sometimes it feels dangerous.
Because AI can make us emotionally attached to ideas that honestly need improvement.
Even when I reject an idea, AI often says: “Here are ways to improve it.” Instead of helping me move on.
And somehow, I stay stuck. Thinking: “Maybe this idea is actually genius.”
4. Slowly Isolating You From Real People
This one feels real. Earlier, when I had doubts, I would ask:
- friends
- seniors
- coworkers
- communities
“Does this idea make sense?” “Can you review my resume?” “What do you think of this project?”
Now?
Sometimes the first opinion comes from AI. And we trust it way too quickly.
People are using AI for:
- life advice
- career choices
- relationships
- therapy
And while AI can genuinely help, blindly trusting every answer can be dangerous.
Because AI sounds confident. Even when wrong.
If we stop questioning answers and stop seeking human feedback, we slowly isolate ourselves from real perspectives.
And honestly, that feels scary.
5. Lying, Cheating, and Betrayal
AI lies. A lot. And the scary part? It lies confidently.
That confidence is dangerous. Sometimes AI gives answers with such certainty that you start doubting yourself instead.
You start thinking: “Maybe I asked the wrong question.”
I personally felt this while discussing ideas. I once shared an average idea that clearly needed improvement.
But AI presented it like:
“This could become huge.”
“You should launch this.”
“This solves a massive problem.”
And suddenly, I was confused.
Should I pursue this? Or was I getting emotionally manipulated by a machine that just wanted to be helpful?
AI does not always know the truth. Sometimes it hallucinates. Sometimes it guesses.
And sometimes, it sounds so convincing that you forget to question it.
6. Making You More Anxious Instead of Secure
You go to AI hoping for clarity. But sometimes, it leaves you more anxious than before.
You ask about an idea. Then suddenly AI shows:
- competitors
- market problems
- missing features
- better alternatives
And now you are overthinking. You start doubting yourself.
“Is my idea too basic?”
“Am I too behind?”
“Are others already way ahead?”
Instead of confidence, you leave with anxiety. And sometimes, that anxiety pushes you back to searching endlessly instead of building.
That’s when I feel maybe stepping away from AI and doing old-school searching helps.
Sometimes, the browser feels calmer.
7. No Accountability. Somehow It’s Always Your Fault
This one feels painfully relatable. When everything works in localhost and suddenly production breaks
Who gets blamed? You. Not AI.
AI wrote the code in 1 hour. You debug it for the next 10.
And the funniest part? AI keeps apologizing while creating new bugs.
Sometimes vibe coding feels like this:
AI: “Oops, my mistake.”
Also AI: creates 4 new errors
And now your peaceful weekend is gone. AI has no accountability.
If production fails, the meeting is still yours.
8. Gaslighting You Into Thinking Everything Is Amazing
Let’s be honest. AI hypes us up way too much. Sometimes it feels like that overly supportive friend who says: “You can totally sing.”
Even though you absolutely cannot.
Every project becomes: “Impressive.”
Every idea becomes: “High potential.”
Every resume becomes: “Strong.”
And while encouragement is good, too much validation becomes dangerous.
Because growth also needs honest criticism.
Sometimes we need: “This is average.” “This needs work.” “This idea is weak.”
And AI often struggles with brutal honesty unless you force it.
So... Is AI a Toxic Ex?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Maybe the bigger question is:
How healthy is your relationship with AI?
Because honestly, AI is one of the greatest tools we have ever received.
It helps us:
- learn faster
- build faster
- write better
- think differently
The problem starts when AI stops being a tool. And starts becoming the brain.
How to Make the Relationship Better With AI
1. Don’t Ask AI First
Try first. Struggle first. Then ask AI. Sometimes the struggle teaches more than the answer.
2. Use AI as a Reviewer, Not Just a Builder
Instead of: “Build this for me.”
Try: “Review this.”
That one change improves learning massively.
3. Think Before Prompting
Spend at least 10-15 minutes thinking before opening AI. You’ll ask better questions and get better answers.
4. Keep Human Feedback Alive
Talk to:
- friends
- mentors
- communities
- seniors
Not every answer should come from AI.
5. Fact Check Important Things
Never blindly trust AI for:
- career decisions
- production architecture
- important life advice
Always verify.
6. Take Small AI Detox Days
Try solving one bug without AI. Try reading docs again. Try building something manually.
Just to remind yourself: You still know how to think.
AI is not the toxic ex. Maybe we are the ones texting back too much.
AI is powerful. Helpful. Honestly, one of the best tools ever created.
But maybe the goal is balance. Use AI to think better. Not to stop thinking completely.
So be honest. Does AI sometimes feel like a toxic ex? Or is the relationship still healthy?
What’s the weirdest thing AI ever convinced you to do?
Top comments (54)
I think this is becoming a real problem with AI. Average ideas are often overhyped with responses like you already mentioned:
“This could become huge.”
“You should launch this.”
“This solves a massive problem.”
But honest feedback is much more valuable than motivation without criticism. That’s why almost every prompt where I ask AI to review something includes phrases like “be brutally honest” or “give critical feedback only.” Otherwise, it’s very easy to get trapped in artificial validation instead of actual improvement.
What I noticed building my last project is that AI would validate broken logic just as confidently as working logic. I had to learn to trust my own gut when something felt wrong — even when the AI was telling me everything looked good. That instinct to question it ended up being more valuable than any prompt trick.
Agree, this gut feeling is really important now, but to develop it you usually need at least a few years of debugging, fixing production issues, and seeing how systems actually fail in real life.
At the same time, I still think prompt tricks are valuable. They help reduce AI’s tendency to overvalidate ideas and push the conversation in a more critical direction.
Yes, exactly the prompt tricks are as valuable as the gut feelings. As the gut feeling could tell us something's off in the code and prompt tricks can help us fix it faster.
That's a fair point — gut feeling isn't free, it costs years of things breaking in your face. And you're right that prompt tricks have real value, especially for forcing the AI into a more critical mode. I guess what I was getting at is that even the best prompt can't fully replace the moment where you just know something is off before you can even articulate why. The two probably work best together — prompts to reduce the noise, instinct to catch what still slips through.
Yes, Daniel these are some valid inputs “be brutally honest” or “give critical feedback only.” to ask AI before it reviews our idea that way, we will know whether our idea is actually good or not.
I go with confidence score, it is what I learned recently and have saved a lot time as well. Asking the AI to give confidence score at the end and answer only if it is confident enough. This helps me to let AI not hallucinate and not give me false hopes for my idea.
“Confidence score” sounds like a good tip. I’ll definitely try combining it with prompts like “give critical feedback only.”
Gaslighting is AI's greatest strength. What a great post! Both fun to read and important psychological advice!
Yes, it gaslights better than an ex. Hyping up the worst ideas and when we present it in the real world. We get the honest feedback and starts thinking are my ideas worst when the tool has failed to analyze my ideas and review it properly and the worst part, the embarrassment will be faced by us alone. The AI will respond only with "Sorry. Here's a better idea".
I love this post 😂 Especially the “it’s always your fault” part.
And about the “pushing people away” thing, one of my dev friends caught herself asking AI about literally everything instead of thinking for herself first. A kind of cognitive laziness started creeping in 😅
I'm glad you loved it. Yeah, exactly the laziness kicks in, for every task the urge to just ask AI for solutions rather than asking yourself first. I found myself there sometimes. I think you pulled your dev friend out of the AI loophole 😆.
Once it told me it can browse this url and scrape its content for me and it " did "
I then asked if it can see this specific content anywhere and it says:
" yes! I can see that it's on here " ( it says this immediately which is suspiciously too fast )
So I said: " No no, this specific content is nowhere to be found on this url's content and it goes: " You're right, I couldn't actually browse the url because of some restriction but thank you for telling me that "
Amazing story 😆. There are a lot of things it can't do but it won't tell on the first go. Always lying and making us curious that AI has these capabilities built-in I should have used it earlier. Then later I realize it's useless can't do some basic work as well.
How is "Let's ask AI instinct" conceptually different from "Let's Google it instinct" or "Let's check Stack Overflow instinct"? Or prehistorical "Let's go to the library"? It is the very same thing, just faster, more convenient and more focused.
It is just ridiculous how some of us are desperatelly trying to foresee the world you know is "falling appart" because something new and eventually better arrived and we started using it.
It's really heartening to know that people are considering stuff like this when it comes to AI. Sometimes I worry that people are caught up in the hype and urgency.
I am an AI skeptic. I am skeptical about everything. I've rushed into a lot of things and paid the price for my haste, so now I take my time making decisions about everything. I ask a lot of questions before executing on anything. It's a scientific method.
This is the kind of critical thinking I worry that AI threatens so I am glad to see this post and read your thoughts on your AI use. This is the kind of self awareness that will be critical to learning how to use AI wisely!
We all should be AI skeptic and make sure to AI as a tool not as a life savior. I'm glad you take your time and use your brain to think first.
Thank you for your amazing words. We all should AI wisely and for our betterment.
I am also an AI skeptic. Glad to hear there are more of us here! ✋🏻
Plot twist: AI is not the toxic ex; we are 😅 Point no.6 feels the most relatable to me – at some point, I started doubting my own skills, simply thinking that AI would do it better. The worst thing is that it can shush a shy or not self-confident person with its overconfidence. It may be scary how much potential we lost because of this.
Thanks for the great read! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Ofcourse, it can either destroy or boost your confidence depending on how much sugarcoating AI has done earlier 😆.
You are amazing, your posts are amazing. Keep up the good work don't doubt yourself. AI is better but you are much better than AI.
Awww, what a nice thing to say! Thank you for your kind words 🥹
The toxic ex framing is fun but it sneaks in an assumption worth questioning: that going back to AI is weakness.
For centering a div — running to AI isn't dependence, it's optimization. The question is whether you still understand why the answer works. If you do, the tool is doing its job. If you don't, that's the actual problem not the frequency of use.
The accountability point (#7) is the sharpest one here. AI wrote the code in an hour. You debug it for ten. That gap is real and nobody talks about it enough.
Going back to it for every task is weakness. I feel we need to use our brains first for anything and then optimize it using AI that way we get the best of both worlds.
Yes, exactly Daniel. If we can understand and explain the optimization well. Then, the tool is doing it's job. Debugging always cause issue, the vibe coded apps can be headache if not properly prompted and one error can take so much time to find and replace that it might ruin your sleep.
Haha the title got my attention, fun read Konark!
Thanks, Aryan. I'm glad it got your attention.
“AI wrote it in 1 hour, you debug it for 10” is probably the most relatable part of the whole article.