For over 10 years, my father has been my primary editor on Financial Samurai. When my father isn't available, my wife steps in. This system has allowed me to maintain a consistent publishing schedule of three quality posts a week.
Typically, I spend 1.5–3 hours writing a post. Then, my father spends 1–1.5 hours editing it. After that, I take another 30 minutes or so to add relevant links, images, and share the post on social media. Altogether, each post can take up to five hours to produce, even though they usually take less than 10 minutes to read.
No wonder why it’s so hard to last online! Not only does it take huge effort to complete a post, everybody expects you to write for free. And if you can’t get any sponsors, the natural course of action is to quit.
Fortunately, I enjoy the process of writing, spending roughly 10 hours a week on it. However, in 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) became mainstream with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Initially, I didn’t pay much attention to it, as people were mostly using it for casual conversations—like having a digital companion. Then I became dismayed by how AI was simply stealing all publishers' content.
But in early 2024, I found the perfect use case for ChatGPT after opening up a free account in 2023. After writing each post, I'd just drop the entire post in the software to catch grammar errors and make my writing clearer. Not only did this speed up my writing process, but it also saved my father almost five hours of work each week.
In other words, AI replaced my dad’s job.
My Dad Was Actually Happy AI Took Over
After relying on our writing and editing routine for so long, I felt a little guilty about not sending him my draft posts anymore. So, one day, I asked him how he felt about it. To my surprise, he was not only fine with it, but actually happy!
In the past, he had occasionally complained about my tendency to write too much or be too wordy. However, I didn’t expect him to be glad that he no longer had to edit my posts.
Sure, I wasn’t paying him much to edit—his “compensation” was being able to order Uber Eats on my credit card for whatever he and my mom wanted. My card is the default setting on his Uber Eats account. During COVID, I set this up to help them avoid public places and unnecessary driving as senior citizens in their 70s.
They love food, so they were quite pleased with the arrangement. Although he no longer edits my posts regularly, he’s still on the Financial Samurai meal plan, which I’m happy to continue as a way to make up for the years he helped me for free.
The Problem With AI Taking Over My Dad’s Job
Here’s the thing: I didn’t just want my dad to be my editor for the help—it was a way for us to bond. He is a man of few words and I wanted to have more organic reasons to call.
Since I published three posts a week, plus a weekly newsletter, I would call, text, or email him at least three times a week. During these exchanges, we would talk about the post, trade ideas, and discuss anything else happening in our lives.
Being my editor brought us closer together. I had to endure a lot of critical feedback that sometimes stung, but it was worth it. Now that he’s no longer editing regularly, our communication has dropped by 70%.
I still call him once or twice a week, but we no longer chat as frequently or in as much detail. That’s the biggest downside of AI replacing my dad’s job—the decline in our conversations. How sad.
When I started Financial Samurai, I envisioned it as a place where my parents could always check in to see what I was up to. I was living in SF and constantly traveling, while they were abroad or living in Honolulu. Now, I hope it can serve as a repository of thoughts and memories for my children.
Having Purpose In Retirement Is So Important
Another concern I have about AI taking over my dad’s job is that it takes away one of his purposes. Even though he says he’s happy to no longer edit my posts, I wonder if he’s truly 100% OK with it.
Everyone needs a sense of purpose, especially in retirement. Without purpose, you risk spending your days passively—sitting in front of the TV, letting your mind and body deteriorate.
By keeping the mind challenged, especially in retirement, we might be able to stave off neurodegenerative disorders or at least slow them down. If we don’t use our minds and bodies, we tend to lose them.
I worry about this for my dad because I went through a letdown after I retired in 2012. I felt uncertain, anxious, and restless for the first couple of years. I’ve written about the downsides of early retirement to help others feel OK sharing their concerns.
Writing for Financial Samurai gave me a purpose after I no longer had clients to manage. Coming up with new ideas has also kept my mind sharp.
Small Surprising Revelations Keep Coming
For example, just the other day, I was telling my wife how excited I was of a simple solution I came up with for the work-from-home debate: work for a company that allows you to work from home for a better lifestyle, but invest in companies that require employees to be in the office for potentially better returns. This way, you’re at least hedged.
I had been focusing on the work-from-home issue from the employee and manager perspectives but hadn’t considered it from an investor’s viewpoint. I’m sure others have thought of this before, but I hadn’t come across it communicated so succinctly as a solution.
Consulting for a startup earlier this year, even if only for four months, reminded me how much harder startup employees work compared to those at established companies. Something is always going on and startup employees need to be able to perform multiple job functions.
My latest consulting experience prompted me to invest more in a venture capital fund focused on AI. Seeing smart, motivated people create is a part of America's magic. I had conviction investing in private growth companies before, but now I have even more.
Hopefully, regularly exercising my mind by coming up with new ideas will keep it healthy for longer.
Blind Spot: We're Just Two Different People
Maybe my dad’s retirement is exactly what he wants—great food, Apple TV+, the occasional exercise class, and a quarterly poker night with friends while living in Hawaii. When I write this out, his retirement sound great!
After all, he’s a traditional retiree in his 70s, while I retired early at 34 and am now 47. I likely have more energy to take on new activities simply because I’m younger. I'm also obsessed with doing as much as possible before I become incapacitated. My dad, on the other hand, has been retired for over 20 years. So by now, he surely knows what makes him happy.
Perhaps my fear is that I see plenty of active people in their late 60s and 70s playing pickleball, which amazes me. So, part of me dreams about that level of activity, ability, and community for my father. I also worry about settling into a sedentary lifestyle, as if it is an inevitability as one ages.
But I’ve come to realize—and accept—that we’re just two different people with different levels of contentment. If he's not worried, why should I be? Besides, it’s hard to change one’s habits so late.
AI May Be Coming For Your Job Too
Luckily for my dad, he doesn’t need an editing job to make ends meet. After decades of working in the foreign service, he has a lifetime pension. But what I do know is that AI is coming for millions of jobs. My dad’s job was one of them, and yours could be next.
AI has boosted my productivity by about 35%, and I expect that to grow as I get better at using it. Some website owners are now producing hundreds of articles a month with AI, while I’m still stubbornly holding at 16.
I used to be skeptical of AI, but once I learned to use it, I became a believer. This year, I’ve invested over $140,000 into private AI companies, with plans to invest more as my cash flow allows. If OpenAI was going to put my dad out of work, then at least it should give me a return on my investment.
Learn To Use AI For Your Own Good
You need to get comfortable with AI to boost your productivity at work. Build or use an AI agent or AI copilot to help you get work done. Learn every AI tool and application you can because if you don’t, someone else will, and you'll fall behind.
I’m currently using ChatGPT for the most basic task: editing. But the more drafts I feed into it, the better it will get at learning my writing style. Eventually, AI could generate posts that are 80%+ done based on the topics and parameters I set. That would save me three to six hours a week.
Then I could finally sit on the beach every day, sipping a margarita after a round of tennis. What a life! Well, maybe not. I could do that now, but I don’t because I enjoy being productive. There’s something deeply rewarding about creating something from nothing.
Writing is part of my ikigai—it not only brings me happiness but also helps me work through dilemmas, which gives me a deep sense of satisfaction. Through writing this post, I’ve come to realize the futility of trying to change someone based on my own desires and the importance of letting people be.
I’m not ready to let AI take away the joy of effort and creativity yet.
Maybe I’ll teach my dad how to use ChatGPT to edit my posts when I visit him next. He’s used Grammarly before, and since he’s not that excited about editing my work, AI could save him a lot of time. Who knows, maybe his interest will return as he adds his personal touch while keeping his mind sharp!
But again, that might just be me projecting. Leave him alone in retirement already! I’ll check in with him after he reads this post! Hope retirement life is treating you ever better, dad.
Reader Questions
Has AI taken over your job yet? If not, are you worried it will? How are you using AI to boost your productivity? I’d love to hear all the ways you’ve integrated AI into your work. Or, are you avoiding AI altogether?
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I work in consulting and we achieve productivity in 2 main ways 1. BPO, 2. AI. While I may be working myself out of a job medium to long term, I currently use Chat GPT to create frameworks for decks, presentations, pitch ideas, etc. I use it on a separate device from my work devices to make it less obvious.
As a white collar grunt, I can now say that I can’t go a day without using the paid version of chatGpt to help me cope with my crushing workload. A colleague produced amazing results in less than an hour and I learned that he used ChatGPT. So I finally drank the Kool-Aid.
Currently, AI is a boon to white collar wage slaves. Companies seem to be universally understaffed. The workload is the worst I’ve ever seen it in my entire decades long career. I’ve worked in private, non-profit, and now the government sectors and I am not a stranger to the 100-hour work week. I get emails at all hours of the day from my government counterparts. One of my colleagues had to quit her federal job because of the outrageously long hours that sound to me like investment banker hours. Where we work now is slightly better apparently. Today my colleague and I left work at about 6:15. Amazing!!!!! It was so early. I almost didn’t know what to do with myself when I got home.
Companies, including Apple, are jumping on the bandwagon to ban the use of AI in the workplace. The federal government is too. Eventually, they will figure out how to use it while continuing to ban workers from using it. Unknown how long this will take.
In the meantime, I’m anticipating a ban. Part of my exit strategy is to train up my own chatGPT and do consulting after I retire from wage slavedom.
I also recommend doing meetings in zoom versus teams because the AI that produces the minutes and action items is far superior in zoom.
I’m sorry to hear Work is so arduous. But I’m also glad that ChatGPT has helped improve productivity a lot.
Does that mean AI could also potentially help you retire earlier or do something else sooner?
This post about your relationship with your father is my favorite of the many dozens I’ve read. Being close to your father’s age, I can say that I feel more like you in this regard. I would very much like an ‘organic reason’ to communicate with my children on something other than the ‘usual’.
Gives me something to work on – more. For now, living in Western NC, my son and I do have a more important focus helping our neighbors. The images in the press do not do the devastation justice. It truly is biblical / apocalyptic.
Tim, thanks for your comment and reading FS.
I’m sorry about has happened in Asheville. I’m glad you and your son are safe, and have ability to help your community.
Fight on!
I spent many years writing technical manuals for many of the Eng Commissioning work we worked on. These Manuals detailed the ground up building of new facilities, then the commissioning, including software interfaces we activekly designed. Then having to write operational manulas that had to be at a grade 6 reading level for the operators. I could have used AI.
However, it gave me free rein to book many hours of o/time on getting it done asap & then re-writes. I retired on that $$$ & went 100% into building a rental portfolio spanning 40+ years.
So AI today doesn’t faze me, but our kids may face some doubt as Ai dominates the interface(s) with so many jobs. BUT they also have still growing RE portfolios to fall back on.
Interesting post. You know that whatever you enter into ChatGPT is then assumed and feeds the next versions of ChatGPT right? They have run out of available online data to analyze, so anything you input and your conversation itself is feeding the machine…
Some publishers/journals now make you sign a statement that you will not enter any information into ChatGPT as that would be a breach of confidentiality/copyright…
Some people have made simple analogies to when graphing calculators came out and could solve most math problems. Well teachers reverted to exams with no calculators, or just made the problems more complex so use of calculator was only part of the solution. Something similar will be done with ChatGPT, for example essays written in person, or use of computers with internet access blocked to type up a report/essay in a hour.
No question ChatGPT can increase efficiency and take care of real tasks that required a human person before. There will be change.. but change has occurred throughout history…
I guess now I’ll just have to read your posts for the pure enjoyment now.
You could even clone your voice and use it for the Financial Samurai podcast, using text to speech software.
Not a bad idea! I think some newspapers actually do that where they have some Auto speaker read the articles as an option. But some of them hire voice actors to read an article as well, which I see on my Apple newsfeed.
There has already been much lost due to AI. Already, when I read a book, I check the publish date and take comfort in books written pre-ChatGPT. Not because I’m anti-AI. I use it every day myself. But because there is something sacred about something written using purely the human mind.
The same could be said for music. For songwriting. For artwork. For poetry. For script writing and film production. For photography.
It won’t be long before we’re all longing deeply for the era before AI. Our kids may never even experience it. In the same way that we long for the era prior to the internet and cell phones, all the while simultaneously using the technology.
Interesting point on publish dates pre and post chatGPT for books. I’m actually coming out with a new book in Spring 2025. But I wrote it, not ChatGPT, so don’t exclude it from your reading list! :)
I donno.. but I think with a book, it’s almost impossible to publish a good book using AI. It takes 2 years and maybe 100 rounds of editing to polish up a book. ChatGPT to create a blog post, but not a book. At least not yet.
“Live him alone in retirement already!”
Looks like there’s a way to go yet before an AI editor is better than a human one ;)
Maybe! Or maybe, I planted the typo there to get my dad back to editing on occasion.
Don’t worry about being inactive when you age. I’m 75 years old. Doesn’t seem old at all. I spent 2 hours cutting and trimming trees with my 35 year old daughter this morning. Then I went to the driving range and hit balls for an hour. Just read your post while listening to Miley Cyrus on Pandora. There’s always stuff to do. I don’t worry about purpose in life. Have fun and do what you want.
Great to hear! I’m glad you’re spending quality time with with your daughter as well. Stay off those ladders, though!
So much about AI scares the crap out of me. Sure it has a lot of benefits especially in the right hands. But what worries me so much is the amount of damage it will do in the wrong hands. It’s moving faster than regulators can keep up with. And I believe there are going to be a lot of people out there who will use it to cause harm. But pretty much anything in the world can and will be exploited. So we shouldn’t let that stop us from finding innovative ways to do good in the world.
But yeah it’s hard not to worry about our parents and them getting increasingly sedentary. Fortunately my father is still active and mentally sharp. He’s slowed down, but he still likes to be active and has purpose. On the other hand, my mother is a mess both mentally and physically. She could probably benefit from being more sedentary. But you’re exactly right that we can’t change other people. And what’s content to one person can be entirely different for the next. Glad to hear your dad is enjoying his retirement!
I’ve found that AI has significantly increased my productivity as a transactional attorney. I’m still learning to use ChatGPT. I use Grammarly Pro for all my emails, texts, and documents. I’ve also started using a new AI tool for contract lawyers, which I find surprisingly helpful. It catches a few small things I might miss, and I can input my benchmarks and instruct it to review future contracts based on those. It also integrates the benchmarks into the document using the correct defined terms. However, it still requires supervision, as the language it suggests outside of my benchmarks is sometimes incorrect or overly aggressive. I don’t believe it threatens my job, but I think it could pose a significant threat to new associates. The tool can perform any task a first-year associate might do, but better, faster, and more efficiently.
Yeah, so the new Associates need to learn that AI tool for lawyers to look like stars to you.
Right, but it takes years of practice to know how to discern what contract language is appropriate/market and how to speak with clients and opposing counsel. Selfishly, I don’t want to send work to young associates because the sole purpose would be to train them. I can do the tasks I previously sent to a younger associate myself more quickly using AI tools than the time it takes to include them in a project. I’m in a life stage with young kids, so I want to be as efficient at work as possible and go home. It’s good that some older attorneys are more generous with their time and don’t know how to use technology well, so they still work well with new folks.
I understand. Sounds like a hyper-competitive environment. All law associates should take note and do their best to figure things out using AI ASAP.
Sam, I Agree with so much of this article! Having a few sabbaticals it is absolutely imperative for man to have a purpose. We’re the same age roughly with same age parents, and I have the EXACT same concerns trying to get my dad more active! Sorry to hear of the loss of connection, that sucks.
However, on the AI front, I believe a good portion of the jobs AI is taking over are jobs that are monotonous and people don’t want to do anyway. Mudane, repetitive items its easy to lose focus on and get sloppy. (There will no doubt be some impact to real employment opportunities), but hopefully it allows or sparks ability to pursue something more fulfilling. I can dream.
We want what’s best for our parents, who we sometimes see as not doing enough to stay active and healthy. But we should probably let go given they are older, know their bodies, and likely have less energy.
But we are probably just projecting our minds onto their older bodies. It’s interesting! Bc I think most of us have fresher minds than bodies as we age.
Fun post. Please continue to generate original content. I am hitting “unsubscribe” way too often these days for content that is AI generated and formulaic. Nicely phrased and polished but lacking any depth.
That being said, AI is definitely entering our professional lives and adding value.
Sure. I’ll write as long as I enjoy the process. It’s just nice to know within 5 years, an AI brain can just write for me if I want it to.