I haven’t been blogging lately; or drawing, painting, or writing. I haven’t been doing much of anything in the creative outlet part of my life; I have been living in the “real” part of my life: learning a new job, spending time with family, and building a new rock garden. But if I wanted to make it look like I were being creative or busy “making” things I could just have my computer do it for me and put it out into the world using AI. In fact, if I were so inclined I could lay down my pencil, paintbrush, and keyboard and just let AI do all of my creating for me from now on.

What do you think about AI? Better yet, what do you know about AI?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t new. (Artificial: something that is created by man, not occurring naturally; Intelligence: the ability to acquire and apply knowledge.) The minute humans were successful in creating a machine, that we would plug in data and it would do work for us, is the minute we created AI. Computers have been around for quite a while now. From the huge main-frames that took up rooms, to the small cell-phones that everyone now carries around; we are connected, available, and ever progressing. We are all responsible for the rapid pace at which the dependence upon our cell phones has grown. Because of our cell-phone use we experience AI on the daily.

There are so many questions about AI out there. Because most of us don’t understand it completely, we charge ahead with our opinions clouding the reality. We forget the fact that it takes humans to program and enter data; meaning that AI won’t take over the world unless humans make that happen. Machines/robots etc are only able to “anticipate” our needs and work seemingly out in front of us, because a human has programed it to do just that and given it algorithms etc to work within.

What exactly can AI do and in what arenas of our lives do we see it? Is AI going to take over and destroy humanity? Are we going to be living like the Jetsons in a few years? Let’s calm down and take a level-headed look at what AI can do.

These are just a few very brief ideas of what AI has to offer:

Medicine: at this time AI is mostly used to help clinicians gather and analyze data quickly from imaging (x-rays, MRI, CT scans) which aids in diagnosing. AI is also used in patient flow, helping set appointments and assign patients into beds in the hospital.

General Technology: AI can be used in setting up calendars and schedules, used in staffing situations in the workplace and personal use. Most prominent in home use is the “smart home” application. These smart home tools use machine learning, computer vision, and learning technologies. These run things like temperature, lights, appliances, etc. These let the machines interpret human commands and even “learn” to anticipate the user’s preferences. The most obvious of these applications is when you ask Siri to look something up for you and then your phone, your computer, all your social media is suddenly showing you those things as it “anticipates” your wants.

Education: This is the area where there seem to be as many pros as cons. Instructors are able to use AI to create lesson plans, to help analyze data from and about students to help them know strengths and weaknesses and place them in the learning that they need. Students are able to use AI to assist them in research and studying. The downside is that AI can do all of the work for a student. (Not just in education/school but in the working world as well, individuals can have AI write their resumes, cover letters, blog posts, newspaper articles, etc.)

Military: AI can be used to interpret incoming threats, it can decipher intelligence data, and it can, of course, be weaponized. Drones, jamming signals, and intercepting incoming threats are current uses.

Art: this is the one I have the most energy about. AI generated art is perfect. My husband once had a saddle maker tell him that if you see a flaw, a tiny imperfection, or a small difference in something crafted then you know it is handmade or tooled. If it isn’t “perfect” you know a human made it. It is unique, never to be replicated to the exact. That’s the rub, right there, about AI generated art. Photography, music, drawing, painting, pottery, knitting, crocheting, needlework, scrapbooking, writing, and crafting of any kind, can be done by a machine or computer generated in some way.

In the future, AI could take a majority of the jobs from humans, it could also take the arts. But let’s be honest, who among us doesn’t use it already to some extent? I am guilty of using it in part in all of my drawings that I put on the internet. I have my sketchbooks, painting pads, scrapbooks, photos saved “as is” but I also have a collection of spiffed up art. My process is as follows: draw a picture, take a picture of it with my phone, edit it to black and white, if I want it colored I print it black and white and then color it and take another picture. Sometimes I use an app that takes out the grainy background of my photos and then a lot of times I use another app to add words to my pictures.

For me, the issue I have with AI is that I don’t fully understand it. I don’t know how computers work, I just know that we rely on them. I know that I am a constant question asker so google is my favorite friend. I would rather use pen and paper than chart on a computer at work; but I also know I am in the minority and I can’t stand in the way of progress. There is fear around AI because of ignorance (much like most fears).

I don’t fear for my occupation. It would be very hard to replace nursing with a machine. Some things just require the human touch, using human interactions for care and assessment. One would think that anything that involves one human in contact with another human would never be able to be replaced by machines. AI lacks a soul, AND YET, we have seen waitresses get replaced, money exchanges not involving any money, robots that are so lifelike, distance/on-line learning, and so on.

Sometimes it feels generational when thinking about and discussing AI. Those of us that weren’t raised with cell-phones seem to have a harder time accepting the take-over of artificial anything. We are just looking for common sense and real intelligence, we don’t have the energy to be introduced to one more thing that feels like lazy and superficial. And the younger generations are forging ahead (much like the revolutionaries before them) carrying their know-how and lust for “in the moment” and producing things that are amazing, glittering, frightening, beyond imagination, and brilliant.

I see all the sides of this one. I see the pros, the cons, the benefits, the downsides. I would love to hear your insight and/or opinions.