I’ve heard that AI is taking over everything.
And, at a cursory glance, that seems to be the case. Even in opening a Word document to write this column, an AI prompt popped up, asking me what it could help me write. As someone who enjoys writing, it felt a bit like I was taking a leisurely bike ride with my family and a bot offering to finish the ride for me.
Weird, and no, thank you. And, preferably, please go away.
I see it infiltrating other aspects of life. My son got his picture taken for Little League and, when his photo was ready, the photo-ordering website asked whether I wanted to scroll through a gallery of over 800 pictures of other people’s kids to find my own or simply upload a photo of my son and it would find his photos in a jiffy.
Helpful? Yeah, actually. Harmless? Maybe. Creepy? Yeah, that, too.
But, as we all know, not all AI applications are nearly as helpful, at least to us average, good people. Phishing scams have gotten more sophisticated in part due to AI. I fancy myself fairly savvy (don’t we all?), and yet recently found myself on a phishing hook.
They didn’t quite get me, but it was close. Embarrassingly close. And the reason that they convinced me of a plausible situation was because they knew things about me. Things that no human could have been able to put together without the help of an AI bot scouring the internet.
I try not to get freaked out about what’s out there about little old me on the big, wide internet, and how all these data points are going to be used to potentially hurt me. The potential of AI is too big and scary for me to get my head wrapped around. And the movement toward AI feels all-encompassing and unstoppable, like floodwaters rushing across blacktop, in a hurry to fill in every possible crevasse of daily life.
Every time I turn on the news or go online or do anything connected with my phone (which is practically attached to my body), I’m reminded of AI’s ongoing and seemingly unstoppable infiltration.
It feels pervasive. And it’s only growing.
But then I step outside. In this beautiful, glorious place that is northern Minnesota. I walk through a canopy of trees. I sit by our Great Lake. I hug my son and my husband. I connect with the things that make me a person, not necessarily a more productive version of one. The things in my life that make it joyful happen to be completely independent of AI. They are people and places that are, at their core, impenetrable to it.
Sure, AI can guide, influence, or even destroy. But it will never be a fat little bumblebee jumping around a field of black-eyed Susans. It’ll never replace the feeling of standing at the foot of Lake Superior as a storm turns and sprays its frigid waters. It could never successfully mimic the pure joy in my son’s laugh.
It’s easy to feel that life itself is getting swept up into AI — and it’s even easier to get super stressed out about it. AI is quickly becoming this behemoth force in our lives that many of us don’t even understand. All the people behind these tools want us to believe in the inevitability of their complete takeover.
But I need to be careful not to conflate things happening in a digital world with life itself. I need to stand firm in keeping the two separate.
I can’t think of a more advantageous spot than this place, where over 100 miles of trails through our backyards beckon us to breathtaking vistas of Lake Superior melting into the sky. Where the sand and snow mix to make a very specific crunch under my boot. Where my family sits together to watch for otters and eat snacks.
AI doesn’t have a soul. But here, this place where we live, does. The things in life that really matter do. And AI can’t have that. We can’t let it.
Jenna Kowaleski, of Duluth, is a freelance Lifestyle columnist for the Duluth News Tribune.
