Author AJ Jacobs, who previously wrote about living for 24 hours without plastics, recently tried a different fast: life without artificial intelligence.

He set his sights on 48 hours, and launched into a world where he quickly found that, along with the expected computer and internet ban, he couldn’t run his water, travel by taxi, Uber or subway, use cash or credit cards, or turn on his lights.

He writes about the experiment in “48 Hours Without AI” in the New York Times and joins host Robin Young to talk about the extensive roles that AI plays in our lives.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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