AI is an Oxymoron Ultimately Dumbing Us All Down!
It seems that no matter what I do anymore, I encounter some AI tool that is supposed to make my work easier or better. I am becoming more fanatically anti-AI every day.
I can’t think of anything artificial that is better than the genuine article. Intelligence is a God-given quality which exists only in living things. It can never exist in a machine or piece of software. At best, AI regurgitates or rearranges content it has been fed. A synonym for artificial is fake. Maybe if we called it Fake Intelligence, FI, more people would see it for what it really is.
AI consists of two components—a huge set of data stolen via the internet from real people’s creations. All those photos uploaded to social media or websites, all the hand-created artwork, all the blog posts and articles on websites, all the videos on youtube and other sites—downloaded and incorporated into their data banks. Okay, maybe not all of it, but much of it was stolen with no consent or compensation to the real creators. I guess if you steal on such a large scale, there are no repercussions.
The second aspect of AI is the code that attempts to make sense of the massive amount of data that has been collected. They call this “learning." That code was written by intelligent humans—who maybe didn’t foresee the consequences of the monster they were creating.
Where will the AI road take us?
Aside from putting large numbers of people out of work, there are serious long-term personal consequences of going down this AI road. Most of the work I have done in my life has involved creating things. I’ve worked as a computer programmer, web designer, graphic designer, course builder, and author. All those things were, and still are, accomplished without AI, using the intelligence and creativity God gave me. The Bible says we are created in God’s image.
“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
Genesis 1:27
That means, at least in part, that people have intelligence—the real kind. Also, we were created to be creative! After all, God was the first Creator.
As I’ve worked over the years, I’ve often left my latest creation displayed on the computer screen, so I could see it often and admire it. That might seem prideful, but it’s more the satisfaction of a completed project, done to the best of my abilities. One day, it struck me that God did the same thing when He created the world. In Genesis 1, it says that each day, He looked over what He had created and saw that it was good! And on the sixth day, He looked at everything He had made and saw that it was very good.
Where is the personal satisfaction in having an AI engine spit out an image, a story, or a website?
My satisfaction comes in knowing that I created something. The creation process has involved lots of work, study, practice, struggle, and sometimes frustration. But by sticking with it, I’ve improved in many areas, and I’m able to produce better work. The struggle has improved my ability to think and create. It’s also developed qualities like patience and perseverance. That personal development and growth will vanish if we increasingly rely on AI to create everything for us.
I used to teach computer programming at a community college. Often, students would practically beg me for the solution to a coding assignment. I’m sure they thought I was mean when I wouldn’t give it to them. By the end of the semester, many of them realized it wasn’t the answer that was important, but the struggle involved in solving the problem themselves. That is what developed the analytical ability and reasoning they would need to solve future problems.
It reminds me of a butterfly struggling to be free of its chrysalis. The fragile little thing works so hard at it. It’s tempting to help it out of the chrysalis. But it’s through that struggle that they become strong enough to fly. By helping them, we will likely kill them.
I hope there is an increasing rejection of this trend toward the injection of AI into every aspect of our lives. True intelligence is only found in living things. That is even more true with wisdom. Even if they obtain all the information in the world, as AI appears determined to do, knowing how to use it wisely and ethically is another level altogether, best left to us humans!
