What is Real in the Age of AI?

The more I learn about technology, the more grateful I am for being born in a time before widespread Internet usage. I made college memories before people livestreamed everything online. I got jobs off a good, solid handshake - not an AI-generated cover letter. I met the love of my life in person - not swiping through profiles on Tinder. Phones weren’t around to “document” a play-by-play of these events. We just lived them - fully present, completely engaged - and fondly retell the stories years after.  

The emergence of the cellphone disrupted my bubble of ever-present sanctitude. I protested and refused to get one for years; until the costs of maintaining a landline and the missed texts from my boss resulted in major consequences. When I purchased my first cellphone, I did so to “connect” myself to others; however, it seemed to have the opposite effect. The people with whom I previously made memories over the Egg Bowl stopped showing up to things. The only proof of life I received was the occasional misspelled text message. 

Social media took things even farther from reality. Instead of making a new friend while you sit in a waiting room, people keep their heads down, scrolling incessantly on a handheld device. Friends, family, coworkers - everyone disengaged a step further from the present to escape into the abyss of mis- and disinformation circulating online. Digitized communal experiences lack the positive effects of a team sport, a bonfire on the lake, or a rambunctious supper table. The online option connects us to information, but disconnects us from the people that matter.  

Then came artificial intelligence (AI) - a novel technology that’s truly revolutionizing many aspects of life, from education to government to business. The status quo of process and expectations is being shattered. There’s a lot of fear about how AI is going to continue disrupting our lives, our professions, and our world. Guardrails that should have been put into place were not, and we find ourselves caught in the riptide of “innovation” that has offered very little positive benefit to the majority. AI makes it easier than ever to produce and disseminate inaccurate content, and the volume in which this is occurring is altering the Internet in unprecedented ways. There’s fake everything everywhere. 

The spill of crap online has greatly muddied the once-wellspring of knowledge. The very platform that opened so many doors to me as a young professional trying to figure out college applications is the point of entry for maligned and manipulative information infiltrating our nation’s cognitive sphere. “How do I even know what’s real anymore?” is a question I hear from folks when discussing AI in various contexts. I provide recommendations regarding mis/dis detection, best practices for engaging online, etc., but deep down I really long for the world where that question simply wasn’t. 

I’m up to my eyeballs in AI-related research, development, and training right now. Staying current on new technologies is a requirement of my career path. I’d entered this optimistically - eager to “size up” the new technological challenge and provide effective solutions that would make the world better; however, such an ambition is proving to be rather lofty and naive. 

AI’s perfusion across the world is changing us. The emails I read look different, as many are now written by AI. The college course I’ve taught for years has to be overhauled to accommodate for student usage of AI. The content I view online is often created or at least drastically enhanced by AI. The RFPs I’m responding to are all written by AI. The AI technologies we all rushed out to use are removing us farther and farther from the humans we are trying to connect. It’s a bizarre phenomenon of a technology that promised one thing, and when applied, leaves us dealing with another.

The deeper I go into AI, the more I crave what is real - hiking in the mountains with my family, watching a beautiful sunrise over the Atlantic, spending time on the farm, belly laughs over a somewhat inappropriate, but oh-so-funny joke. Over the past few months, I reach for my phone less, and talk to strangers more. I added dozens of physical books to my library. Instead of being drawn towards high-tech screen displays, I avoid them and resubscribed to print newspaper. I plan dinner parties, invite people out to lunch, and joined half a dozen local organizations that meet regularly in person and work on community projects. I know what happens in these contexts is “real”, and the counterfeit digital insanity that floods our cognitive spaces isn’t going to make our reality any better. 

So, what is real? Perhaps we should not look online for the answer to that question; but instead evaluate and take steps necessary to enhance the real world around us. What are we doing with the people in our vicinity? How are we conducting ourselves? In what are we investing our time? If we hope to see blooms in the garden this spring, we must intentionally cultivate a garden. The pseudo-satisfactory slop technology is offering us lacks the thing we all so desperately crave. In a world where almost anything can be generated with a few clicks of a button, the only thing that provides real satisfaction is the very experiences that spring from a non-digitized source of our deepest humanity.