The New Alchemy: AI, Convenience, and the Law of Equivalent Exchange
Creative Expression as Alchemy
When I was a kid learning to play the piano, it didn’t always come easily to me. Some days I’d sit for hours hunched over my Roland digital piano, fumbling through scales and simple songs, frustrated that my fingers wouldn’t cooperate with my brain. There were times I wanted to quit. There were times I would try to play faster, as if speed was what I was missing. But every so often, after days or even weeks of repetition, something would click. A fluid motion, a chord progression, a melody or phrase that finally made sense. The feeling that followed wasn’t just relief; it was reward. It was the deep, almost electric satisfaction that only comes from earning something the hard way.
Years later, when I began learning to code, I found myself back in that same familiar place. This time I was staring at a screen instead of keys, struggling through logic mistakes, cryptic syntax errors, and a profound sense of “I don’t get it.” Just like with the piano, there were no shortcuts. I spent nights puzzling over broken loops and mangled data structures, days reading documentation, and fighting with git commands until something finally clicked. When it did, the feeling was the same: hard-won clarity, deeply satisfying in a way that only comes from pushing through the discomfort.
In both music and engineering, I came to understand a simple truth: if you want to create something meaningful, you have to give something of yourself—time, effort, focus, frustration, persistence. There are no substitutions and no free passes. That is the essence of a concept from a story I came to love years later, Fullmetal Alchemist, where the world runs on a principle called the Law of Equivalent Exchange: to obtain something, something of equal value must be lost.
Looking back, I realize what I was learning wasn’t just music or coding; it was the law of equivalent exchange. To gain something meaningful, something of value must be given in return. That law doesn’t just apply to piano practice or fictional alchemy. It applies to thinking, creating, and now, more than ever, to how we use AI.
The Illusion of Creation Without Cost
In Fullmetal Alchemist, the Elric brothers' early experiments with alchemy are playful and harmless. They transform everyday materials into toys, figurines, and small trinkets, their imaginations alive with possibility. Creation comes easily, and the cost of their transmutations seems negligible. But that illusion fades after they lose their mother. In their grief, they attempt the unthinkable: using alchemy to bring her back. The reaction fails catastrophically. Edward loses an arm and a leg. Alphonse loses his entire body. It is only then that they come to understand the true nature of alchemy and the infinite value of a human soul.
There are clear parallels between the Elric brothers’ early experiments and how we’re approaching generative AI today. Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and countless others are often treated as digital toys—clever, convenient, and seemingly harmless. They quickly produce working code, fluent writing, and quick answers at the push of a button. To most users, the cost of using these tools feels negligible. There is no upfront struggle and no obvious sacrifice. But that sense of ease can be misleading. Just like the Elrics’ first transmutations, these early interactions obscure a deeper truth: the real cost of creation doesn’t always show up immediately. Sometimes, it is what we stop doing—thinking critically, writing reflectively, learning through effort—that ends up being the price we pay.
The Atrophy of Intellectual Muscle
Relying too heavily on AI to generate ideas, solve problems, or create art risks more than just convenience. It threatens the very faculties that define our humanity. Just as a body weakens without exercise, our intellectual and creative muscles atrophy when we outsource the struggle of thinking and creating to machines.
But this is not simply about skill loss. At a deeper level, the act of wrestling with difficulty—of grappling with uncertainty, making mistakes, and pushing through frustration—is fundamental to how we construct meaning and identity. Our mental struggles are not just obstacles to overcome; they are the crucible in which self-awareness, insight, and wisdom are forged.
When we surrender that process to AI, we risk losing more than cognitive sharpness. We risk losing a part of what it means to be an active participant in our own intellectual lives. The friction of effort, the patience for ambiguity, and the resilience to confront failure are not just habits but lifelines to existential authenticity. They connect us to the profound experience of discovery and creation, anchoring us in a world where value is earned and not handed over.
This erosion of mental discipline is quiet but profound. Like the Law of Equivalent Exchange, the convenience AI offers demands a price, one we may not immediately perceive. What we gain in speed and ease, we may lose in depth and in the essential human struggle that shapes our thoughts, our identities, and ultimately, our agency and freedom.
The Rise of Hollow Content
In a world where powerful AI tools are readily available to everyone, the act of generating content has become almost effortless. With just a few keystrokes, anyone can produce polished writing, clever code, or creative outputs that look impressive on the surface. Yet this ease of production brings a new challenge: quantity no longer guarantees quality. The true test is whether what we create still carries meaning, depth, and intentionality.
This phenomenon leads to what I call “hollow content”—work that may be technically correct or superficially appealing but lacks genuine insight or emotional resonance. The danger is that in relying on AI-generated material, we risk flooding our digital and intellectual spaces with creations that feel empty, disconnected from lived experience, and devoid of personal voice. This kind of content does not build understanding or provoke reflection. Instead, it can numb us to nuance, flatten complexity, and create a cultural echo chamber of ideas that are recycled without true originality.
“Prompt engineering,” the art of crafting questions or commands to get desirable AI outputs, is a valuable skill. However, it is no substitute for having something meaningful to say. Thoughtful prompts can guide AI to produce better results, but they cannot replace the spark of original thought, the unique perspective born from lived experience and deep reflection. Without that, we risk becoming passive curators rather than active creators, outsourcing not just labor but our intellectual and emotional engagement.
In this way, the rise of hollow content mirrors a broader existential risk: losing the connection between effort and meaning. Just as the Elric brothers learned that alchemy requires sacrifice and understanding beyond simple tricks, so too must we recognize that meaningful creation demands more than output. It requires intention, vulnerability, and a willingness to grapple with complexity—even when it is uncomfortable. Only then can AI serve as a true alchemical tool that transforms rather than dilutes the essence of what it means to create.
Equivalent Exchange in Practice: Ethical Use of AI as Modern Alchemy
If we accept that true growth—intellectual, creative, even existential—comes through effort and struggle, then the question becomes how do we engage with AI without sacrificing those essential experiences?
In Fullmetal Alchemist, the Elric brothers learn that alchemy is not magic or a shortcut. It is a disciplined art bound by the immutable Law of Equivalent Exchange. They discover firsthand that trying to circumvent this law, as when they attempted to resurrect their mother, leads to devastating consequences. This hard lesson mirrors the challenge we face with AI today: how to use powerful tools without losing sight of the fundamental costs involved in creation.
The answer lies in intention and balance. AI should not replace the messy, difficult parts of creation and thought. It should support and augment them. Think of AI as a transmutation circle, a carefully drawn tool that can channel energy and amplify effort but requires skill, knowledge, and responsibility to wield properly. Used wisely, AI can free us from repetitive tasks and reveal new perspectives while still demanding that we remain the true alchemists of our work.
This means resisting the temptation to blindly copy and paste or rely solely on AI-generated answers. Like Edward and Alphonse, who must continually learn, adapt, and apply their knowledge with care, we must treat AI outputs as starting points, sparks of inspiration or guides, while committing to the hard work of reflection, critical thinking, and iteration ourselves.
It also means cultivating awareness of the cost of convenience. Just as the brothers faced tragic consequences when they tried to bypass the natural laws, we must recognize the long-term impact of outsourcing our cognitive labor. We risk intellectual complacency and the slow erosion of original thought. In this sense, the “price” is not always visible immediately, but it is no less real.
Sustainability in AI use is about consciously preserving our mental and creative “muscles.” It is about valuing the process as much as the product. Like a true alchemist mastering their craft, we need patience, discipline, and humility, the understanding that mastery takes time and cannot be rushed or automated away.
By approaching AI ethically and intentionally, we can harness its power without losing what makes us uniquely human. We honor the Law of Equivalent Exchange not just as a fictional rule, but as a guiding principle in our daily lives. By investing effort where it matters most, we create work and ourselves that are truly worth the cost.
A Note on Creation and Collaboration
In the spirit of practicing the very principles I discuss here, I want to acknowledge that part of this essay was developed with the assistance of a large language model. I used AI as a thought partner by using it to help me generate ideas, refine phrasing, and explore concepts. However, the insights, reflections, and final shaping of this piece remain my own. This collaboration reflects a balanced approach to AI, one that respects the Law of Equivalent Exchange: embracing the power of new tools while committing to the effort and intention that give our work true meaning.