AI is Eyeglasses

Do you wear glasses/contacts? Do you feel less human because they help you better see what’s around you?

Do you use sometimes use automated transcription or translation tools? Let algorithms decide what to play next? Search on the internet much?

We tend to think of Artificial Intelligence as something that replaces existing functions. But that’s not what it’s for any more than glasses replace your eyes.

AI is for enhancing what we are capable of, and distributing access to the point that it becomes invisible to us. Like glasses, AI can help us see with clarity what would have been fuzzy otherwise. It doesn’t tell us where we should be looking, any more than Netflix tells us what we must watch. Transcriptions & translations leveraging AI can’t tell us what things mean, only approximate what was said in a more accessible way.

We still infer the meaning. We still decide what’s worth doing. People still need to do this kind of thing for entirely human reasons. And while doing this, we still make entirely human mistakes.

AI does not exist to replace you, unless that is what humans designed it to do.
It’s not here to spy on you, unless that is the human goal.
AI is here to enhance what we can see and do…and it’s already doing this for us today, mostly invisibly.