I wanted AI to free me. It's making me crazy.

About This Video

Van Neistat adopted AI to reduce his screen time. Three months later, he is chained to it. "I'm chaining myself to it link by link." The word "link" does double duty here, meaning both a metaphorical chain link and the literal hyperlinks dragging him deeper into the machine.

This clip comes from The machine dream was never real, the second long-form episode in Van's analog-living series. The premise was clear: deploy AI to automate digital labor, then walk away from the screen. What happened was the opposite. Each tool required configuring and correcting. The promised automation felt like a second job that followed him home.

The confession works because Van does not soften it. He is not calling AI bad. He is saying he miscalculated. The tools do what they promise. They also multiply the surface area of his attention until three months of experimenting nets him more hours behind a display, not fewer. The same paradox runs through Is it wrong to want an AI Agent? and AI-Induced Nervous Breakdowns.

Related: Giving AI Another Chance, 7 AI Principles for a Simpler Life, Long-Form Episode 1.

FAQ

What does Van Neistat mean by "chaining myself to it link by link"?
Van adopted AI tools with the goal of living more analog. After three months, he found the tools required constant attention, pulling him toward the screen rather than away from it. The "links" refer to both the chain of dependency and the hyperlinks consuming his time.

Is this clip from a longer video?
Yes. It comes from "The machine dream was never real," Van's second long-form episode on analog living. The clip isolates the moment where Van admits the AI experiment produced the opposite of its intended result.

Does Van Neistat think AI is bad?
No. His position across the analog-living series is that AI is a tool with a specific purpose: automate machine-to-machine tasks and reduce screen time. The problem he describes here is not the technology itself but his own miscalculation about how much attention the tools demand.

Transcript

Transcript not available from automated pipeline. Surface command for manual fetch: ``` python3 ~/Documents/Obsidian\ Vault/yt-transcript.py 'https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I9XGPL1wA8Q' -o ~/Documents/Obsidian\ Vault/raw/TSM/videos/I9XGPL1wA8Q.md ```

Products & Tools Mentioned

• AI (general) uses — Van adopted AI to live more analog, but it consumed more screen time instead