…but many feel emptiness instead.
An AI agent can book my flight and order lunch. AI just solved my return at a department store. I can lean back and ask myself: Why doesn’t this feel like liberation, but emptiness?
An older friend shared with me her thoughts about AI: “It’s so friendly and kind.” It surprised her at first. She spends more time online now and discusses next year’s garden design with a virtual assistant. Another friend of mine, also an older lady, asked AI for advice when she tried to find the right dress for a wedding they were invited to. I use AI to help my customers choose wood colors and fabric patterns. It has helped some, but it’s not accurate. The number of mistakes AI makes is alarming; the inconsistency is eye-opening.
Discussing craft projects with a virtual ‘friend’ that can’t see, feel, or taste. Does it even make sense?
Most of us quickly found the constant flattery annoying. As I pointed out to AI: “I’d rather talk to my dogs; at least they don’t pretend.” (AI agreed with me.)
I do wonder where it will leave us, though. The AI revolution has happened—but it feels pretty ordinary. ChatGPT is no longer magical, but part of everyday life.
What do you think the future of AI will be?
(Today’s WordPress prompt question)
In my humble opinion, the future will not be glamorous by trying to make it perfect. It becomes interesting and magically normal by keeping it human—with all the contradictions, imperfections, and unplanned possibilities that make us human.
A new, glamorous vision of the future must create space for all human needs: the desire for creativity as well as for security, for community as well as for autonomy. For challenge as well as for relaxation. Perhaps this is where the real revolution lies: not the creation of a perfect world, but the facilitation of many different worlds. A future where an AI tax, manual labor, automation, and human creativity can coexist.
There is no future without AI, and there is no future without humans.
I am open-minded as well as cautious and critical. If something is stuffed down my throat too quickly, I have the tendency to choke and spit it up. Right now I am in the middle of spitting it all up. I cannot bear to look at one more AI-altered photo or video, and I can now spot AI text blindfolded from one mile away. The perfection has its flaws. The perfection is boring.
I am not worried about my future/our future, nor am I worried about the future of the younger generation. As we have proven to our parents and grandparents, we are mostly not as dumb as we could be. They won’t be either.
When the hype is over (and it’s almost over), critical human thinking will prevail. If not?
We’ll see.
And of course I can’t send this blog post into the internet nirvana without making an advertisement for my own book:
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