[fragmede]

> It seems to be an effort to game you into being a more productive worker, and not actually helping you live with ADHD.

Where ADHD leads to problems being productive despite having the intelligence to do the job, and that jobs tend to, y'know, fire you if you're not productive, and you go homeless without money, which you get from having a job, isn't helping ADHD people be productive the same thing?

As far as your trust issues go, that's for each individual to decide. Some people are able to see past their cynicism and derive value from the products companies make.

[overnight5349]

> isn't helping ADHD people be productive the same thing?

Sure, if you believe the meaning of life is working as hard as you possibly can for no benefit until you die.

Real people in the real world have passions, desires, hobbies. Chores, relationships, responsibilities. We have lives. If you've ever met someone with severe ADHD, you'd see that it affects your life deeply and can greatly decrease your quality of life. And that's mostly because of the 'work til you drop' mindset.

> As far as your trust issues go, that's for each individual to decide.

Trusting companies who have over and over done everything they possibly can to turn your trust into money is not really a sane or logical stance to take. Giving enormous detail about your personal life, or confidential work data to a company that blatantly does not respect you or your privacy is not wise.

So to sum up, you're mansplaining my own disability to me and gaslighting me about not trusting openai.

Don't stop now, my 'shitty dudebro' bingo card is nearly full

[fragmede]

I'm not sure which part of what I wrote got you so triggered. I have ADHD, among other things. My ADHD isn't the same as your ADHD. Medicated, I'm able to do things and have a life. I have hobbies. Without it, my apartment's a mess and my life is in shambles and all I can do is scroll Reddit. I'm not sure why you took my comment so poorly, could you help me understand why?

I'm sorry you have it too.

[mahathu]

He and the other person explained in detail why each of your takes was bad, and your only response is "dude, you're triggered lol."

And you understand that as them "taking your comment poorly"?

[overnight5349]

> I'm not sure why you took my comment so poorly, could you help me understand why?

Bingo!

[wombat-sauce]

> As far as your trust issues go, that's for each individual to decide. Some people are able to see past their cynicism and derive value from the products companies make.

Your attempt at framing consumer protection as trust issues undermine the emotional scope of being a human being. You should seriously evaluate why someone who asks for the right to privacy is being framed in your mind as having a “trust issue.”

AI, in its current iteration as a centralized technology, will encourage future rent-seeking by incumbents and impact those dependent on it. Open access to models and locally running offline AI technology will be critical to its long-term success.

[btilly]

People are more productive when they work with their strengths, instead of trying to address their weaknesses. Read https://www.amazon.com/First-Break-All-Rules-Differently/dp/... for more on that.

In the meantime highly productive people from Thomas Jefferson to Richard Feynman appear to have had ADHD. Do you really think that this app would have made a positive difference in their lives?

[hirvi74]

> Thomas Jefferson to Richard Feynman appear to have had ADHD

Based on what behaviors other than being somewhat eclectic? I've seen people try to diagnose historical figures before, but I have never seen these two on any list that I can remember.

[btilly]

Thomas Jefferson is on a list quoted in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC181243/. You can read the book for more on that.

Richard Feynman I'm basing on my impressions from Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman and What Do You Care What Others Think? In particular the first book explains his inability to function when he tried to comply with external demands, and describes the lengths that he went to to live a curiosity driven life where he functioned much better. That matches my experience of ADHD. The second book has a long description of the period in which he wrote https://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm. That description contains a lot that is instantly recognizable as what it feels like to have hyperfocus.

[lyapunova]

You only have to look as far as big social media to see proof of the damage that corporate motives can cause on the mental health of average internetizens.

[mattstir]

I'm quite curious about this sentiment because I've seen it more than a few times here on Hackernews.

I have ADHD and have been very successful in my work life so far. I'm on a prescription medication for when my focus is necessary but that seems to be either dismissed or heavily frowned upon here.

Is there a reason why the answer to ADHD seems to be "use AI to do your work" rather than "use the proven medications to allow you to focus"? It just seems strange to me.

[overnight5349]

A lot of people online have some really weird puritanical notions about medication that affects the brain. Basically all of them should be dismissed out of hand.

Medication is fine, it helps a lot of people, even if it doesn't work for everyone. For some, the effect is quite profound, even life changing. It's up to you, and anyone telling you it's somehow wrong isn't worth listening to.

As to AI, what I want is a LLM acting as a personal assistant fed from a database of all of my daily experiences. My brain isn't that great at organizing and recalling data, so I want to take all of the data I receive and feed it into a machine that can organize and recall it for me. I want a digital copy of my brain that I can search through.

The AI can pick up from my conversations that I promised Bill the TPS reports at 4. Because I'm bad at remembering and actioning on things, it can pop an event into my schedule. Or it can pick up that I said I'd work on encabulator designs in six standups but there's no reference in my commit history and nag me.

I could ask "what do I know about encabulation" and get every article I personally have read relating to mazelvanes and perfabulated amylite. Or "what was that book I read one time about time traveling dogs", or "what's my sister in law's favorite color?", or "what did Kathy say last week about her kid's audition?"

Better yet, it could scan through conversations and guess that Alice wants fancy German chocolates for her birthday because she mentioned it 18 times.

There's just some things my brain does badly at. Just part of the neurological lottery I guess. I want to make up for that by offloading cognitive effort onto a machine. That will massively improve my quality of life, which has the side effect of making me much, much more productive.

I feel like this is a more positive way to help ADHD people. It works with you to make up for the things you're deficient at, rather than making you work harder to compensate. It's actual helping and not "you can do better"

I think everyone could benefit from this type of thing, but right now I see enormous potential for actually helping ADHD and autistic people.

[vineyardmike]

> Is there a reason why the answer to ADHD seems to be "use AI to do your work" rather than "use the proven medications to allow you to focus"?

The same people who are anti-medication are most likely anti-AI.

I have ADHD and I’ve studied it a bit, and have followed a lot of developments and changes in perceptions around it. I also don’t use meditation.

Generally, I’ve noticed a lot of society has a vague anti-daily-medication-for-mental-health view. If you need it every day people tend to be against it. Part of it is that people seem to think you should learn how to cope (you should), which some people think as minimizing the disorder (which is bad). I’ve seen people mention that they don’t like how medication changes your personality (which can be very strong) or generally just don’t like the feeling of being on it.

I’m not a doctor, but ADHD medication can increase your risk of suicide and other severe mental health issues, so there is good health reasons not to take it unless you “need” to. Everyone just seems to have a different definition of “need”.

Personally, for me and my decision not to take it, I felt it was important to learn to live how my body wanted me to. I never liked how i felt on the medication, and i wanted to be myself. Society is very focused on productivity, which can be hard for someone with ADHD to fit into. I wanted to learn how to fit myself into the world, so I could “succeed” and live a happy life (whatever that meant) without having any dependencies. I didn’t want a missed pill one morning or a drug shortage to impart my ability to live my life. That might mean that I don’t have the career I wish I could have, and I won’t live by others’ definition of success, and maybe I have to make conscious changes to my routine.

[callalex]

Based on my experiences on this forum and how my vote counts seem to go, it seems the majority of readers are not anti-medication, but the people who ARE tend to be highly vocal and combatative about it. There’s also the whole vocal contingent on here of people that insist that our disease isn’t real and that we should just try harder and have some discipline.

For me personally, I am interested in exploring every avenue available to me to help me get away from medication, because I kinda hate it. The results I get make it worth it, but every medication I try makes me feel bad physically, and I hate the extreme ups and downs throughout the day that stimulants can cause.

[FeepingCreature]

And some companies are able to make products that people actually want to use, and that don't have properties that put off their prospective customers.

When you want my money, and I don't want to give it to you, that's an "issue", but more for you than me.

[jkhdigital]

Yeah I tend to agree, my ADHD is an existential problem only because I have a family to support and it tends to disrupt the flow of income. You know, by getting me to change careers like four times before age 40…