I haven’t wrestled with whether to buy a magazine THAT much in a long, long time.

Any fellow magazine fans know how things have evolved/splintered into countless categories – from self-help to a wide array of lifestyle, sports, etc. etc. (and many have gone up in price – all those $14.99 “special editions!).

(Side note: Why is it so HARD to buy and read these special editions digitally? I do like having something fresh and trendy for the coffee table, on occasion, but..!!??)

By the way, speaking of old-fashioned paper, in recent months, I’ve picked up some cool AI-focused volumes – often NOT the stuff you read in the daily tide of newsletters and article posts – from Time Magazine, Scientific American, The Street and now…. “How to Hack Your Life with ChatGPT,” from McClatchy Lifestyle & Entertainment.

(I LOVE the weekly tech magazine I get on my Nook, called Tech News Life. But oy, the Masthead, with dead links and email addresses, recently took me down a weird rabbit hole. I was assisted by the folks at the great magazine/newspaper app I have, Magzter. Highly recommended!)

Anyway, at (and despite) first blush, second glance, third eye-roll, over the very name of this magazine and the come-on title-teases, including that no-surprise header: “Don’t Get Left Behind! Welcome to the Age of AI” … I walked away, chuckling and shaking my head.

Then, I returned. Then I hemmed and hawed.

“WHY AI IS THE NEW LIFE HACK” a subhead shouted at me.

Really???

Finally, with an “oh what the heck,” it’s tossed into my shopping cart.

How could I NOT get it? To live up to this blog’s name, if nothing else?

And it turned out to be much what you’d expect, an attractive, 100-page “come on in, the AI water’s fine!” aimed at convincing those hesitating that it really can help you in all facets of life.

“Get to Know Your AI Bestie” is the opening section. (I can see you rolling your eyes, too;-)

The last magazine I bought, “The Power of AI: Breakthroughs Changing the World,” is actually exactly that – all sorts of examples, in wonderfully bite-sized nuggets, about how artificial intelligence really is making big improvements in every facet of …. well, it also has a robot on the cover (big surprise! Not!) and warns of the “Dark Side” of AI, too.

But this new one, to me, represents a milestone, of sorts. A sign that this universal topic is “coming home,” in more approachable fashion.

But seriously… “Hack your life?” Anyone looking to do that, on purpose?

It’s like any other magazine, in many ways – a warm bath of nudges, pretty photos, bullet points and example prompts – (with appropriate warnings not to trust everything your Friendly Neighborhood Chatbot says without double-checking.)

From home organizing and de-cluttering to dating to travel to … well, it checks all the boxes, in far less fearsome and/or daunting fashion than many avenues one finds online.

Some, if not all of the prompt examples likely will make the AI wizards go “duh.” And yes, it speaks of context, and how best to get helpful answers, and engage in dialogue, and how the chatbot is not thinking but sure can be supportive.

Etc., etc.

But it’s nice to see someone making that effort, to – well, humanize AI?

It’s not just a Chat GPT manual/free ad, though it doesn’t go down the deep rabbit hole of what else is out there, like Gemini and Perplexity etc. etc.

However, it does conclude with a set of tools and resources, other things to check out, from Grammarly to Zapier and Otter.AI.

I do see things like magazines as a sign of the times worth thinking about. But hey, I’m the guy who used to do a yearly report for The Bulletin on the new Central Oregon phone book: “Wow, 30 more pages, we’re still growing, Bend! And look at these new categories…” (Yeah, Steve Martin in “The Jerk,” jumping up and down about “the new phone books are here!!!”)