A Wren Says

If you let some tell it, AI, artificial intelligence, will change the world. In which direction fully depends on who you’re talking to. For some, it is our long last hope, spurring us toward greater and faster innovation. For others, it is the final boss, and we must fight against its rise lest it destroy us all. I am solidly in both camps, as if I were trying to get a photo on a state border.

As a creative, I find AI, or specifically LLMs, to be an aid for me when I’m stuck in writer’s block. But as a customer, I am infuriated by chatbots that run me in circles without getting to an answer that a human could have provided in seconds. As a citizen, I am concerned about data protection, rights violations, and theft of image and likeness and ideas.

I don’t think the answer would be to just embrace the good it can do and keep it pushing faster and farther. There needs to be some nuance in how we use AI. There is so much good that it can be used to do, but only if we keep our eyes open to the possible harms.

But more importantly AI is just a tool. It can be used as a weapon for good, but in the wrong hands it can disrupt our ways of being. With the same level of effort we put into controlling the technology, we should be looking at ourselves and the hands that wield the power.