Insider Finance - Business - I outsourced my memory to AI

Hello, Insiders. We’re exploring homeownership in the remote-work era. Yesterday, we talked about the surge in people moving to Florida — and wow, did you have a lot to say! I’ll share your notes soon.

Today, I wanted to talk about how, like many of you, I witnessed the massive surge of homebuying in 2020, and subsequent boom in housing prices, with jealousy. People made a lot of money! And probably also like you, I’m wondering how they’re doing now, since the economy is backsliding. So I looked into the work we’ve done on this.

An Ohio home-flipper issued a somber warning about the market. A 34-year-old who recently bought her first home told us she regretted it. In fact, more and more millennials are regretting buying their homes. And now, sellers are basically paying buyers to purchase their homes. So it seems as if things are tough — even for those who won big in 2020. I’m curious: Do you have any recent real-estate regrets? Let me know: insidertoday@insider.com.

— Nicholas Carlson

I outsourced my memory to AI for three weeks.

Most of us spend hours in front of our computer screens every day, consuming hundreds of thousands of words. But how much of it do you actually remember? Probably not a lot.

It's no surprise that our memories struggle to retain more than a few scant details. One psychology expert told us: "Humans have worse memories than we think we do, and memory for text, in general, isn't great.”

There are dozens of read-later and bookmarking apps, but those don’t help you actually retain information. So the writer Shubham Agarwal decided, instead, to try out an app called Heyday — which quietly processes everything you’re reading and resurfaces reminders when it thinks you’ll need them.

Agarwal found the AI-powered memory tool to be surprisingly effective — here’s how it helped him.

Is it time to leave the city? Judith Schaus left Berlin with her husband and son for a farmhouse in the countryside. They’re now surrounded by a huge garden, rustic buildings, and various animals — and the move has changed their lives. Take a look around.