Taylor’s Takes: Are we already overreliant on AI?

My wife asked me an interesting question this morning.

“Should I be using AI more?”

I asked for context and was given a plethora of examples.

One friend of hers uses AI to compile meal plans and grocery lists for the week. Another friend used AI to generate an image of her bathroom if it were to be renovated. Yet another friend used AI to generate summaries of X-rays and doctor reports.

The ultimate question from my wife was if she was making her life needlessly more difficult by not incorporating artificial intelligence into her day-to-day activities.

Before I go any further, I want to be completely honest and upfront. I’ve used AI, too. I’ve used it to clean up images, to create a logo for my singing gigs, and even to create fake headlines for the Woke or Joke segment we used to have on The Gracy Curley show whenever I encountered writer’s block.

It is a useful tool, and one that should not be entirely discounted from everyday use. But I do see a lot of people beginning to rely on the various AI platforms when they could easily take a few minutes to engage their cerebral cortex instead.

I replied to my wife that not utilizing AI was not making her life more difficult. Our lives are on the same difficulty level they’ve always been. We are just choosing to abstain from AI because those little things that we must sometimes toil over do take some thought and creativity.

A grocery list may be something that I could relent on and give into the omniscience of artificial intelligence. But a bathroom remodel, choosing a paint color, landscaping the backyard… all of those are opportunities where you can feel free to add your own personal touch. AI doesn’t have your personality, and it can’t replicate it.

Sure, you can instruct ChatGPT to add those brass sconces you like. But when you finally install them, will you be disappointed that they don’t look exactly as the rendered image you told a computer to produce? Or will you be surprised at how good they look because you relied solely on your own imagination when envisioning your renovation?

I suppose it all comes down to pride. That feeling you get when you’ve done something completely on your own and it turns out just the way you had hoped it would.

I’m sure you’ve been in a conversation with someone where you’re trying to remember the name of an actor or singer, and neither of you can come up with it. You’re driving home later, or perhaps in the shower the next day, revisiting that conversation in your mind, or even putting away the dishes thinking of nothing in particular when – suddenly – the name bursts into your mind. You’re instantly filled with a joy and relief… and PRIDE that you were able to somehow, maybe even subconsciously, reach into the furthest spaces of your mind and produce the information you thought you had forgotten.

Now, think if you had just Googled or ChatGPT’d that name on the spot. Sure, you instantaneously have that information now, but that pride in coming up with it under your own power vanishes, or even turns to slight embarrassment because you were so quick to bypass your own intelligence to get an answer.

I’m positive there are a bevvy of scenarios in which the use of AI would save us a few minutes if puzzling or toiling here and there. But at what cost? I don’t think we’ve had enough time with the technology to gauge its potential long-term effects.

Looking back over the largest advents in the past few decades, we were delivered many promises through technology that only turned out to be partly true.

Through email, we would all be connected and send messages instantly. I suppose that was true, but how many different email addresses have you gone through simply because the former one became too flooded with spam and phishing messages?

The internet promised to bring the entirety of human knowledge and substance to our fingertips. It still has that potential, and many earnestly use it for that. But how many more of us are looking up silly things to laugh at or entertain ourselves?

The smartphone had similar promises to the internet. All that you once had to access at a stationary computer would be with you wherever you may go. Now we just doomscroll, retaining no useful information and shortening our attention spans.

AI is promising that we will build upon the intelligence we already have, and become more creative, wealthy, and at peace than ever before. But most of what I see people using AI for is trivial.

Yes, I’ve used AI before. And I suppose I will again at some point. But only when my own abilities are less than what the task calls for. I suggest you do the same.