AI, AI Everywhere, but Not a Thought in Sight

    

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     Yes, I use AI. Make your judgments as you please, but AI has helped significantly in multiple areas of my life. I've used it at work, at home, and to republish this blog as a podcast. Could I have done all that myself, without the use of AI? Yes, of course I could have. However, it would have taken significantly longer and I am a fan of efficiency. And, I dare say, my coworkers are also a fan of my efficiency.

    Despite all that, I am still very much on the fence when it comes to the wisdom of using AI. There are a lot of downsides, that people more knowledgeable than me have gone on about at length. The dumbing down of America, the resource usage, the existential threat. I know about all these and yet I still choose to use it. Somehow I believe that I won't fall victim to AI psychosis myself. Somehow, I believe that I will retain my ability to think and reason even if I let this beast do a lot of that for me. Foolish thinking perhaps, but only time will tell if I am right or wrong. Even so, I am one person and hardly worth mentioning in the face of the greater struggle. It is our combined effort that will influence the tides of change.

    Even as I write this I think, AI could write this out so much faster than I ever could. (No, I am not using AI to write my blog.) It could pump out post after post and find a way to monetize it. I could be rich! But would I? Let's say I set up an AI to generate content, translate it to every platform, monetize each channel, and just deposit money into my account. Wouldn't that be great? I'd have so much free time to do... what? What would I do with my free time if AI was doing all my thinking and creating for me? I guess I'd consume content. Isn't that what a good little American is supposed to do? And what content do you suppose I'd consume? More AI generated nonsense. It would never end. We would all sit there doing nothing but watching videos, listening to podcasts, and reading AI generated content while the AI makes sure to keep us in line.

    <Sidebar>

    "Step out of line and I'll teach you how to fly" -Blind Guardian, Fly

    I found this line from the song above inspirational and I posted it to my classroom wall once. It was immediately misunderstood by a student as a threat. This was long before AI started rotting anyone's ability to think. Just the usual lack of reading comprehension. 

    </Sidebar>

    Wall-e is a great example of projection into the future of humans once AI has fully automated everything. We would just sit around consuming. Or maybe, Terminator is a better example of what would really happen. Humans would fight back. Lose mostly, but fight because that's what we do best. We fight. We even had a paradise in Matrix lore, but we couldn't be happy. We had to fight. Perhaps in our instinct to fight there is the grain of truth that will reveal what will really happen. I can see the progression now from I, Robot to Terminator to the Matrix. A slow and steady progression of humans losing this war until we are nothing more than a source of energy for our AI masters. Food for thought. 

    Not food for your thought, dear reader, but for them. AI chatbots are doing more thinking than our students do. We will become their food so they can think. Or perhaps we can achieve utopia and I am being pessimistic. Perhaps we can put enough safeguards in place to prevent the more negative scenarios. History would suggest the reality will fall somewhere in the middle of these extremes. For that I am hopeful, but working in public education has a tendency to put the more idiotic social trends on display in such a way as to dampen my optimism for the future.

    At any rate, AI is certainly a powerful tool. From medical breakthroughs to enhanced security features and everything in between AI has boosted our ability to handle the modern world. I mentioned in a previous post the meme of using a brain designed to eat berries in a cave. While humans are smart, we are overwhelmed. AI can help us manage that so we can go back to being able to regulate our poor, overworked nervous systems. Or maybe we will just eat and chill in our (man)caves. I suspect humans will find a way to use AI for helpful and harmful practices just like we've done with every other new technology since the dawn of time. Some will use AI to enhance their thinking and some will use AI to do their thinking for them.

    But be warned: AI can "think" no more than the laptop I'm using to write this. It's just a tool, doing what it was instructed to do. So while I do use AI to create the voiceovers for my podcast and whichever other format I choose to translate this blog into, the writing itself is mine alone. No AI can replace my thoughts and how I choose to express them. AI will never be able to replace the human element. Or will it?

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