Where AI Stops and We Begin
Wednesday morning, I was sitting in my favorite local donut shop, enjoying a plate of blueberry donuts, when I overheard a young woman at the table next to me exasperatedly exclaim, “I’m tired of using AI to write resumes for me that are read by more AI programs that write rejection letters back!”
Her coffee date responded in an encouraging manner, “Don’t give up hope - someone will hire you!”
The discouraged job seeker looked down at her coffee and said, “It sure doesn’t seem like it.”
AI Claims to Make My Job Easier
Later that morning, I found myself staring at AI-generated summaries of the 100+ government solicitations a BD program I pay tons of money to generate each day.
Sometimes the summaries are good - concise, factual, giving me everything I need to know in just a few paragraphs.
Other times, the summaries are way, way off - the agency is mis-identified, the place of performance is wrong, and the set-aside is incorrect - all jumbled info that further muddies the waters of my capture process.
I remind myself that filtering through the AI-empowered catchment is better than having to speed-read the massive documents that typically accompany each solicitation, as I had to do before AI came on the commercial scene. However, despite the “convenience,” I keep getting migraines when filtering through the daily dribble. “Is this really making my work any easier?” I wonder.
AI Drafts Granny for the Armed Forces
After lunch, I ventured over to my graphic design software, as I needed to make a quick graphic for an upcoming presentation. The software had recently unleashed some AI tools that were supposed to make my DIY design process a “dream”.
I added in all the information - brand colors, intended audience, suggested style, etc. - and watched as the spinning virtual wheels turned.
The AI-generated “masterpiece” it rendered was a joke - completely unusable. I’d listed the audience as “senior military”, and the software generated images of a 70+ year old grandmother - complete with blue-haired perms - in a military uniform.
I trashed it and spent the next hour rendering a graphic from scratch.
AI Kills Bedside Manner
Mid-afternoon, I made the trek over to my doctor’s office for what should have been a relatively quick appointment. I just needed a referral for a few more diagnostics.
The physicians never once made eye contact. He spent the entire appointment behind the computer screen, asking me pre-formulated questions about my symptoms. “Your disease is so rare,” he exasperatedly exclaimed while furiously clicking buttons, “that it’s not an option in the AI program. If it’s not in the drop-down, I can’t get insurance to authorize more tests.”
Flustered, he turned towards the door, “I’ll have to get the main office on this,” he said as he walked out of the exam room.
I gathered my things, and I recalled a visit one year prior - same office - where a different doctor discovered a mass in my chest. I collapsed on the floor and cried. She hugged me, prayed over me, and held my hand. There was no AI-empowered program for her to fight with - just a patient terrified about the journey ahead - and she responded with the bedside manner we all hope to receive in those moments.
AI Infiltrates Bluegrass
I got in the truck and turned on my favorite bluegrass station for the drive back over the mountain. The featured music sounded a little weird. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what was weird; it was just “off.”
After the medley, the radio show host described the music as a new piece by an artist I admired. There was just one differentiator - it had been AI-enhanced to give it a more “modern” sound.
“Ew,” I thought, reminiscing over the many summer days I’d spend at local bluegrass pickings up in the hills, listening to original tunes, learning how to play the jug, and perfecting my flatfoot dance steps. Really good bluegrass gives you a portal into someone’s soul. It seizes your body and awakens something visceral deep down inside that can’t help but tap along at the rhythms of pain and sorrow woven into every line.
“Wonder what ol’ Rooster would think about techno-bluegrass?” I mumbled to myself and then changed the station.
AI Disrupts Writing
Last appointment of the day - a meeting with a book editor. I’m nearing the end of a writing project I’ve been working on for a few years. It’s a book about the aftermath of war - it’s raw, depressing, and not really the stuff Hallmark movies are made out of.
“I’m sorry about the visceralness of Chapter 7. I can clean it up…make it flow better,” I apologized.
“Honestly, I loved that part,” the editor said. “You wouldn’t believe all the AI-generated dribble I have to wade through these days. Your manuscript is real and refreshing. Let’s leave it that way.”
AI Automates Warfare
Evening came, and I headed to a dinner meeting of a military association of which I’m a part. The guest speaker regaled attendees with an excellent presentation on drone warfare.
After extensive discussion on drone usage in Ukraine and Israel, someone - a former fighter pilot - raised the question of what type of awards and medals drone operators in the U.S. military were eligible to receive. “Are they getting recognized, like how we were when flying missions and saving lives?”
“Not in the same way,” the speaker replied.
“That’s going to be bad for recruiting,” the attendee replied. “Kids aren’t going to want to be drone operators if they never see any of them being recognized.”
“Perhaps, but I don’t think it’ll affect the military for long,” the speaker weighed in. “These drones will be running on AI-planned and programmed missions before you know it. Pilots may become obsolete within our lifetime.”
Navigating a World “Empowered” by AI
Like many of you, I’ve been an eager and early adopter of the wide breadth of AI-empowered options.
Many of the AI tools make my life easier - they take out a lot of mundane day-to-day work that I somehow still found myself doing this far into my career, such as scheduling calls, proofreading my emails, and generating checklists for my latest projects. Outsourcing these tasks to technology - when it works correctly - has been a dream. I finally have time to go enjoy a donut on a weekday morning and finish my book; however, utilizing these tools isn’t without errors and frustration. There’s a learning curve, one that if you’ve tried AI-anything over the past few months, you are well aware of.
But even after we learn how to use AI in an effective and efficient manner, there are still limits to its ability to positively contribute to our lives.
One question that I keep asking myself is: Where does AI stop, and we begin?
Or, in the wake of agentic AI, where do human capabilities stop, and AI go beyond?
When I was a naive kid taking computer classes, my professor would tell us the difference between us and computers was that computers couldn’t have original thought - only humans can have original thought. However, AI changes all that. This revolutionary technology is no longer restricted by inputs and outputs. It can become the conductor of the runaway train - human control and consent not required.
The more AI-saturated my world becomes, the more I miss humans. I spend more and more time away from technology these days. I routinely meet friends for supper, spend days out on the trail, and I ditch my phone outside working hours to enjoy the mountain landscapes from astride my trusty mare.
While it’s true that I have more time to do these things thanks to technology, I can’t shake the feeling that the infusion of AI is warping the world around me. College students can’t write essays without cheating. Colleagues are losing jobs to automation. New grads can’t get hired. Emails are generic garbage. Many of my once-favorite publications are now just pumping out pathetic, AI-generated, clickbait crap.
I miss the joy of hearing a really good story, being inspired by my students' grammatically incorrect original thoughts, and feeling a tear run down my face reading a messy, unfiltered memoir about love and pain and fear and hurt and grief and hope and uncertainty - all the things that make us distinctly human. A world littered with AI-generated everything makes it harder and harder to find the humanity in our connected world. Why are we letting a technology touted to enhance our quality of life erode the very things that make us human?
To chart a course towards something good, we must understand where AI stops and we begin. Where can humanity be cultivated in an AI-empowered world? Will our creativity, ingenuity, and uniqueness be valued in a world consumed with scalable automated efficiency? Will people find new ways to connect, do meaningful work, and make our world a better place, or will we get lost in the blitz of technological demands and rapid changes?
The answer, I suspect, won’t come from another software update or smarter algorithm - it will come from us. It will depend on our willingness to protect the parts of life that are too precious, too messy, and too human to outsource. Because in the end, if we don’t decide where AI stops, it just might decide for us.