Get off my lawn, AI

I can’t deny that I’m hesitant about—possibly even annoyed by—AI. I’m unsure if that’s because I’m aging in the tech industry and tired of the next new apps and products that are seemingly released, downloaded, forgotten about, or replaced by something even newer every couple of months. Or is it because I see technology changing me and the people around me? Something that seems cool, interesting, and helpful suddenly turns negative when put in the hands of the wrong humans.

Last week, my 15-year-old daughter told me a story about a classmate who was reading a paper they’d written. Somehow, the author couldn’t pronounce some of the words they’d used in the paper, which had already been turned in and graded.

Suddenly, a conversation about a Clueless teenager shifted to a conversation about the abuse of AI in school.

Oooh they cheated! Nothing new here, right? Students have been cheating for years. In my day, the idea of being caught for plagiarism was terrifying, and we didn't even fully have the internet to help (yes, we had the internet, but it was not the powerful resource it is today, and we used dial-up. Ain't nobody got time for that!). Today, it's almost as if you're being invited to cheat (fully realizing I'm cheating as I type this with my Grammarly extension highlighting every typo and grammatical error this English major makes). So, that's the problem: cheating is easy, possibly the norm. And while the school has an anti-plagiarism policy that mentions AI, it’s not easy for busy (and potentially uninitiated) teachers and administrators to enforce.

Many folks in tech claim they can spot AI a mile away—at least, that’s what they’re saying on LinkedIn. One might think that a teacher should be able to do the same. Of course, there must be signs. But when you’re grading 20+ essays, and you don’t know the student that well, then yeah, maybe a Google-scraped regurgitation of a book’s plot doesn’t read like a rip-off.

Here’s the thing: cheaters will always find a way to cheat, and liars will always lie. We're seeing it play out on the world's stage every day. We're becoming numb to it, because we can't stop the liars. And technology can’t change the human condition. What it can do is enable cheating and lying at an early age and make it so effortless that it feels benign. So it's making young people lazy, careless, and less curious about the things that they need in their lives to challenge the way they think, behave, and react in order to grow into amazing human beings who meet their full potential. This is when my blood pressure starts to rise.

I’m concerned about the future, not for myself or even my kids, but for society's laziness and our inability to recognize that technology is not our friend. It’s our assistant, and like a human assistant, AI is not qualified to do the real work or complete the job. Yet, for some reason, we want to let it do everything: research, write, edit, design, code, illustrate, and more in the name of “productivity.”

Productivity is not copying, stealing, and presenting computer-generated ideas (or anyone else’s, for that matter) as your own. Productivity is finding the path of least resistance to do all those things while also producing something uniquely yours because it includes a part of you—your ideas, craftsmanship, touch, passion, emotions, and care. When you’re productive, you thoughtfully improve your process—you don’t mindlessly replace yourself completely.

So, yes, AI can help with the type of productivity I’m talking about. And guess what? I've used AI bots for meeting notes, ChatGPT for research, and other minor things. I’m sure I’ll continue to experiment with AI and always keep my mind open to new developments. What I won’t do is be okay with technology replacing people—or even the human touch—when it comes to my work (or yours, tbh).

As an old guy, a parent, a technology industry veteran, and an author who actually typed every word of a book, I’m telling AI to get off my lawn. You don’t have to leave, bro, but you gotta stay on the sidewalk, on the other side of the gate. I’ll let you in when it makes sense, and I don’t feel like you’re putting the world on the fast track to idiocracy.