Overuse of smartphones is now a widely recognised problem, but we’re also starting to see people perhaps get overly dependent on chatbots like Claude AI and ChatGPT.

Claude creator Anthropic is currently testing a beta feature intended to allow users to reflect on how they are using the AI and be prompted to perhaps use it less …

It was just a few days ago that “father of the iPod” Tony Fadell said we didn’t think enough about how smartphone usage might become problematic when we created the devices, and we need to address overuse of AI before it becomes an issue rather than afterwards.

Anthropic seems to agree, as the company has today launched a beta intended to help Claude users reflect on their past usage of the chatbot.

Your reflection starts with a summary of how you’ve been using Claude, covering key topics, your usage patterns, and the types of tasks you often work through. You can look back on your Claude chat activity over the past one, three, six months, or 12 months.

The reflect feature provides a breakdown of when you use Claude most, and what you spent that time working on. Soon, we’ll add a view of how much time you’ve spent using Claude.

Claude will also periodically prompt you to consider whether you are using it too much, although Anthropic ironically suggests that if you do have concerns, you should talk it through with … Claude.

Your reflection also invites you to step back and examine the role Claude plays in your life. It will periodically surface questions like, “What’s one thing you want to keep doing yourself, even if Claude could do it faster?” and give you the chance to talk it through with Claude.

The company is also providing tools akin to Screen Time.

Within your dashboard, you can also set quiet hours or schedule a nudge to take a break from using Claude after a certain amount of time.

Finally, Anthropic is promoting what it calls the 4D AI Fluency Framework.

• Delegation: Setting goals and deciding whether and how to engage with AI
• Description: Effectively describing goals to prompt useful AI behaviors and outputs
• Discernment: Accurately assessing the usefulness of AI outputs and behaviors
• Diligence: Taking responsibility for what we do with AI and how we do it

Do you think over-dependence on AI is an issue for you personally or for people more generally? Please share your thoughts in the comments. I’ll kick things off by expressing my dismay at how many people are now (very obviously) having ChatGPT write their social media posts …

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• Discounted AirPods Pro 3
• Wireless CarPlay adapter
• AirTag holders and accessories
• Mac Pro-style Mac mini casing
• NordVPN – privacy-first VPN with no logs and independent audits to verify

Photo by Mohammad Shahhosseini on Unsplash