Artificial intelligence, as we regrettably know, is everywhere. I see articles praising it for its speed and efficiency at getting work done, but I also see article after article talking about how AI is doing more harm than good, if it is doing any good at all.
I’m not going to try to convince you one way or the other, in part because I regularly feel torn about it. As a technology, it doesn’t interest me a lot, because I feel like it’s just another step down the machine learning path that we were already on. I don’t like that the tech industry has decided to make this the de facto future of computing. I have used it, in large part so that I know what’s going on, but I also now have an entire computer dedicated to having zero AI tools on it. I’m building a social photography app that is dedicated to being free of AI tools and respecting its users, but I’ve also been working on a tool that uses a local AI model to filter abusive texts from people I’m legally unable to cut out of my life.
In short, AI is potentially helpful, but always harmful to creativity and expression. We should not be relying on it, and yet we are. And it is to this point that I am writing.
Abdicating thought
AI has been pitched as a way to get things done faster. It can write for you, teach you, code for you, be a helpful assistant for you. At work, it can do all of the things you don’t want to do, like writing boilerplate code, or managing tests, or even write entire features for you, all with a press of a button and without any human supervision.
On the surface, that’s pretty cool! But here’s what I have seen: AI can write the code (some of it decent), it can do the tasks, but despite advertising to the contrary, it cannot think. It doesn’t know why you’re writing the code or email, it doesn’t understand what the end user actually needs. All it knows is patterns, which we as humans see as intelligence. Humans are really good at pattern matching, so when a computer is good at it too, we think it’s amazing. Which, fair, a computer knowing what I want without having to type in a shell command is really nice, but it’s not intelligent. It’s smart in the same way a smart home is smart, by doing things that look like a human is doing them.
But in all of this, the computer has no better understanding of what’s going on than before. If we rely on AI to do our critical thinking for us, then we are abdicating our responsibility to our employers, our customers and ourselves. Submitting or responding to a PR request, providing a design decision, or any other use of AI to replace your individual opinion, viewpoint, and voice is doing just that, stating through actions that a computer is more capable than you are.
In your own words
It’s tempting to let AI take care of all of our work. Shows like Star Trek show a future with powerful computers, capable of even generating physical objects, including food and tools. It’s kind of amazing to just let the computer do your job for you, so that you can live you best utopian life. However, even in Star Trek, the characters we root for are always the ones calling the shots.
We don’t cheer for Geordie because he came up with the correct prompt to make the computer AI fix the warp core, or Picard for getting the computer to come up with negotiation techniques. We care about these people because Geordie has earned his position in engineering, because we know Picard is going to make the best choices for his crew and those around him. These are people, using their personalities, identities, and skills to make a difference in the universe around them.
Especially in the current environment, where everyone has access to AI tools, using your own voice and opinions is the only way to stand out. There characters we love from Star Trek are depicted as having full, rewarding lives, with hobbies, interests, friendships, relationships. They live, they feel, they are alive, and they bring all of themselves to the things they do. And we should too.
Use your words, give your opinions, share your insights. Don’t let the AI speak for you. Even if you’re just doing your job, your voice matters. You matter. Don’t give up on that because it’s easier to let a computer do your job.
