135th Edition
AI – Friend or Foe
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, just announced some exciting news. As stated in a recent Wall Street Journal article, “Walmart is forming a partnership with OpenAI to let shoppers buy its products directly within ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot.” Admittedly, I’m not sure what all that means, but it does sound exciting, doesn’t it?
AI is being integrated into just about every day-to-day task, including email and word processing. It might seem natural to use AI to enhance our daily shopping. As I age and become more forgetful, it is really annoying to get home from a shopping trip only to realize I’ve forgotten one or two items. Won’t AI eliminate this frustrating experience? I’m also not much for making shopping lists, but again, AI will do that for me somehow, won’t it? Eventually, by utilizing AI I won’t have to plan, organize my thoughts, or remember anything. Sounds like AI will produce a significant improvement in my standard of living, right?
Still, I’m wondering what will happen to my brain once I become dependent on AI. I know what happens to my muscles and cardiovascular system when I take time off from exercise. Will a similar atrophy in my mental capability occur once AI takes over?
One of the most interesting aspects of brain function, at least to me, is intuition. We all experience it from time to time. For some strange reason we have a sudden urge to do something that interrupts our daily routine. Maybe we feel an urge to call a friend we haven’t talked to in quite a while. Maybe we feel an impulse to look through an old box in the attic that we haven’t opened in years. Stuff like that. We all feel these urges sometimes. And often they lead to meaningful experiences. I had one of these recently when I had the urge to check out the on-line version of my hometown newspaper. Finding nothing particularly interesting in the sports section, I went to the obituary page. The second name that came up was my best friend from grade school, who died a few months ago. I have so many fond memories of him, and I wouldn’t have known about his passing had I not had the urge to visit my hometown newspaper. Will AI supply the urges that lead to meaningful discoveries and heartfelt memories?
AI will undoubtedly make a lot of functions and operations more efficient. It is likely to change, if not eliminate countless jobs across virtually every industry. It might even allow us to spend less time wandering up and down the aisles in Walmart looking for dish soap, toothpaste, or band aids.
Which leads me to this question. Is your life more meaningful when you are more connected to and dependent upon technology or when you are unplugged and disconnected? That’s an easy question for me to answer. How about you?
I have this sinking feeling that AI isn’t going to make our lives more meaningful. However, it will do a few things. First, it will eliminate a lot of lower-skill, entry-level jobs. That’s unfortunate, in my opinion. I learned so much from my first job, as I imagine most people did. Second, it will give businesses and government more information about our buying habits as well as how we spend our time online. What they do with this information is anyone’s guess. Some of it might be positive, like the AI-enhanced trip to Walmart. No more forgetting items and no more need for shopping lists! But, businesses and government will be tempted to use this information for their own benefit. To control how we think and act. From the perspective of individual freedom, I don’t think that it is likely to turn out well.
Too much of technology today is a solution in search of a problem. Nevertheless, each day we are becoming more dependent on technology. Who hasn’t had a panic attack when they couldn’t find their iPhone? Dependency is never a good thing, with one exception, of course, which is dependency on God. Will AI lead us in that direction? We shall see.
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Michael Kayes
*These views are my personal opinions and are not the viewpoints of any company or organization.