Eileen Slovak

Feel like you have a good handle on AI right now? Oops! It’s already changed. Feeling overwhelmed? Fearful? Join the massive club. This technology is moving so fast, that even as I write this, AI has already changed. And that’s scary!

Technology’s entire premise is to constantly get bigger and better and faster. What’s worrisome is that the changes in AI seem to be outpacing the learning curve. Yet learn we must, because AI is here to stay.

If you’re avoiding AI altogether due to apprehension while simultaneously panicking about being left behind, again, you’re not alone. Add on concerns over Phishing, bias, data poisoning, misuse, misinformation and the alarm resonates. Furthermore how do we regulate it? Especially when sprinting to keep up.

Hang on folks! We’ve been here before. Maybe just not to this extent.

Some of us who remember the first computers. They were wall monsters. If you had told us then that we would be carrying computers like notebooks? We’d have stared at you like a crazy person and said, “No way!” Yet they grew progressively smaller and more intelligent and easier to use over time.

Remember when the internet was the new frontier? How about the first time you booked travel online? Oh, the anxiety of who was on the other side! Is it safe? Can we trust it? Double and triple checking before anxiously hitting the send button. What if when we arrived wherever we were going there was no hotel at all?

We’ve never looked back.

Does this ring a bell? “You’ve got mail!” When email was new, we thought how impersonal…we will never become accustomed to this.

But we did.

Cell phones. Texting. Social Media. Hard to image not having these techno crutches now, right?

Google.

Before Google we used to look things up in the encyclopedia, in books, periodicals, and other resources. We used the dewy decimal system! It was so complex.

Some of us grew up watching programs like: The Jetsons, Star Trek, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. We thought the technology was fascinating but impossible. Yet things we saw then, though unimaginable, became a reality: video conferencing, jet packs and hand held communication devices.

In theory, we can survive this.

So how are you using AI?

As a writer, I am fascinated with the illustration features. When I ask AI to create an image from something I’ve written, it’s magical! Sometimes it takes a few tries. People are missing body parts or have one too many. Sometimes I’m amazed when the image is just as I would have imagined.

I’m sure illustrators are not thrilled and are quite horrified and offended by this. These images are not art.

I feel the same about straight AI writing. Yet I get it. For those who struggle with writing, this presents a solid solution. To me, the AI based writing sounds ‘robotic’ for lack of a better term. It has, however, already gotten better. If I ask AI for writing suggestions, I generally do a fair bit of rewriting. I find using AI helpful for outlines and structure, key words, as well as editing suggestions. Not that I take the advice on board as a rule.

Younger generations than I grew up with all of this technology. It has become second nature. So easy for them, right?

Should that make those of us who didn’t fearful? Absolutely not. Look what we’ve survived! We’re weathered. Maybe even a tad scarred?

We vintage veterans do possess one clear advantage. We were already living and creating ‘before’ the onset of the technology wave. We learned how to create, write, think, problem solve, and come up with new ideas without the help of technology. We were here before the internet. Before everything AI.

If we can manage to harness our creativity AND master AI, as the tool it was meant to be…well…then what? Endless possibilities.

Figuring out how to make AI work best for us is the current challenge.

My pressing concern is not that AI is more intelligent than us or that it will replace us. My concern is that future generations of humans will stop thinking for themselves. That they will let technology and AI become the brains.

If that happens…I’ll shout, “Beam me up, Scotty!”

Because then we will have lost the war against the machines created to help us, not to hurt us.

Note: This article is my original content. AI was used for the ‘editing suggestions’ and image only!

Thanks for reading and keep creating!