The author spent a day trying to save a $200 Chromebook because a chatbot made the job feel doable. Payoff vs. hours was poor; school starts in a week. Pattern: AI makes tasks she would not have touched feel worth a try—and when it works, it feels like “I did it myself.”

She is mostly bullish for students: a tutor on demand can create agency (her kids used ChatGPT to update drivers instead of waiting for Dad). She rejects calling that cheating—asking a teacher, following steps, and asking why it failed are how learning works. Calculator-in-the-pocket is the analogy: they will not pass a drivers quiz unaided.

The real questions, she says, are which problems are worth the struggle, what must be known without help, and what is valuable because it takes time—not policing AI. Short runways to a product are not automatically wrong. Chatbots will not tell you to quit; sometimes perseverance is the point, and sometimes you buy a new Chromebook.

I spent my whole day trying to save a $200 Chromebook. When I think about the hourly rate, it really wasn’t the best use of my time. School starts in less than a week, and I had many other things on my to-do list. But alas, Gemini made me feel like I could solve it, so I kept troubleshooting, and before I knew it, it was 5:00.

This is an ironic pattern I have noticed lately as I use chatbots more and more for work. It makes me feel like I can do anything. Things I wouldn’t have ever considered even attempting (read: most tech-related projects), I suddenly feel like trying because there is no harm in asking. And when it works, it does feel so........

© Eurasia Review