ChatGPT Atlas Edition - Part 1: The Privacy Paradox - ChatGPT Wants Your Browser History

What happened

Armed with ChatGPT Atlas, I set out on what should have been a simple task: book restaurant reservations for a weekend trip with B-school friends. Specific requirements: party size, availability, and restaurants known for particular dishes. What followed was a masterclass in AI inefficiency.

The painful reality

Atlas methodically checked restaurant availability like a determined but slow detective, loading each restaurant's reservation system, checking dates, checking times, checking party sizes. I literally had to leave it running and go do other things - twice. By the time it finished, I could have called three restaurants and charmed my way into reservations.

The irony

Here's the thing: Atlas was thorough. It checked multiple restaurants, cross-referenced availability with our requirements, and even noted which places were known for specific dishes. But watching it navigate each website felt like teaching your grandparent to use Instagram - technically successful, but painfully slow.

Why this matters

This is the automation paradox in real-time. Yes, AI can do the task. No, it's not faster than a human who knows what they're doing. The promise of AI agents is that they'll handle mundane tasks while we do more important things. But if those mundane tasks take 3x longer, are we really winning?

The cognitive load question

There's also the mental overhead of wondering "Is it done yet? Did it error out? Should I check?" It's like having an intern who might be brilliant or might be blindly copy-pasting chatbot responses, you never quite know until you check their work.

Tomorrow: Atlas searches for Airbnbs with very specific requirements (spoiler: I could have done it faster, but at least I didn't have to).