Everyone’s doing the new hot thing: AI, artificial intelligence. I’m sure we’re all using it in thousands of different ways by now. The moment AI became a hot topic was when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT a few years ago. At least that’s when I sensed the AI conversation had switched from something to talk about to something that’s here to stay so get used to it.
Ever since tech became a thing — and back then it was called computer technology — I’ve taken a much curtailed interest in the latest tech thing, the new toy. Does it have an on/off switch is all I really wanted to know. And then came the personal computer.
And now, a generation later, we carry around computers in our pockets. Very Dick Tracy. It’s the world we live in now. The years between a computer in every home to a computer in every pocket, I only ever learned enough tech to get by. I had a life to live, and being a tech geek was not in the plans. I didn’t need it to fly me to the moon; I just needed it to get me down the road where I’m going.
That attitude seems to have worked so far, in the sense that I am still here and I still know how to send an attachment in an email. But ask me to update my website, and I haven’t a clue. I don’t like not knowing, but that’s all part of the labor theory of value, isn’t it, and I accept what I don’t know and adjust. Mainly by hiding my head in the sand.
And now there’s AI to contend with. I’ve embraced it. What else can one do? It’s here, and it’s going to stay here, and it’s going to be our world until the next big thing. This is more of a theoretical embracing; not so much a practical embracing. Up until a few days ago, I would have said I didn’t use AI, and honestly, couldn’t imagine where it might prove useful. Theoretically it was good, but I ain’t seeing it so far.
Then I noticed that nowadays when I do a search on the internet, a gray box sits on top of the list of places I could go to to get the answer. The box only appears when I ask a who, what, where, when, why question. For instance, imagine I ask “What is fractional reserve banking?” and the search assistant in its gray box gives me a succinct answer, with a More button, which I always click, because who doesn’t want to know more about fractional reserve banking?
That’s when it dawned on me. If I was using Google as my search engine, which I don’t (how tech geeky is that?!), the gray box would say Google Assist or whatever Google’s AI assistant is called.
In life I ask a lot of questions, both on and offline. When it’s on and the gray box answers my every curious question like a pro, I get the warm fuzzies, knowing I have embraced the future. A future where presumably the more you don’t know won’t be a problem. Just ask AI. It can do your thinking for you.
Musically this week, we’ve got Soul Queen Aretha Franklin …
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