As frightened of AI as I am, its emergence is something we should have seen coming. In a real sense, AI appearing at this moment in time is as natural as one step following the other… or as night smoothly blending into day.

If you are not convinced, I invite you to stop for a moment and consider the driving force behind the most popular innovations that have shaped humanity. Don’t most of them share the common characteristic of trying to make human life EASIER and BETTER? Don’t those mad scientists toil away in their labs day and night so they can find ways to reduce the amount of labor involved in being human? 

Look, for example, at the most primitive technological breakthrough of all time: the invention of the wheel. What was that about?  It made rocks easier to move from Point A to Point B. What about Eli Whitney’s cotton gin? Its goal was to make it easier to separate the cotton seeds from the cotton boll (and enslaving thousands of people in the process, let’s admit). The automobile, I would argue, made it easier – and faster – for people to get from place to place. 

And let’s not forget our good friend, the internet. This Wonderful World Wide Web made arcane information – not to mention adorable cat videos – much easier to access and share. 

I would argue that just about every innovation in widespread use today was preceded by the rallying cry, “There has to be an easier way!”

Why should it surprise us, then, when a tool suddenly appears whose whole purpose is to make thinking and analyzingand making decisions infinitely easier? Because frankly, thinking, analyzing, and deciding are all HARD!

Wasn’t this the futuredream we drooled over when we watched The Jetsons on Saturday morning TV? After zipping home from a hard day at the widget plant, George Jetson had Rosey the Robot mix him a drink while he rode the automatic conveyor belt from his garage to his living room. Jane then beeped and booped a few buttons on a console and out popped a scrumptious “home-cooked” meal from behind a panel on the wall. 

[I especially loved the part where Rosey swept up the crumbs from the floor (with a broom and dustpan, mind you), popped open a panel on her belly, and then dumped the floor detritus inside herself.]

“So COOL!” we thought. “I can’t wait until I have one of THOSE in my house! What an amazing, work-free future awaits us!”

And now, except for the flying car part, we have finally arrived in the fabulous future world of the Jetsons. And how do we like this brave, new world of 2026? We have a lot of the bells and whistles of futuristic technology, sure. 3D printed bionic body parts, anyone? But there is also that “existential threat” part that clouds the horizon a bit. 

“What if the computers get TOO smart?” we wail. “What if they are so smart they recognize that human beings are the problem and must be destroyed?” we cry. “What if the idyllic world of the Jetson’s turns out to be some kind of garish techno-nightmare?” we moan.

We have finally figured out how to take the stress and hard work out of the equation. In the process, though, we might have taken US out of it, too. We started with the goal of throwing out the bath water. But somehow, we realize now, we might be in danger of tossing out the baby, too.

All of which leads me to this very odd question; do you think it is possible there is a place in the world for sweat, frustration and tears? Is there some residual human value derived from the friction produced by THOUGHT, EFFORT, and TRAIL AND ERROR EXPERIMENTATION? 

Just for fun, I briefly considered asking the Copilot AI program to write this blog post for me, to see what it would come up with. The end product certainly might have been smoother, less tortured and quirky than my typical blog posts are, with a whole lot less stops and starts and redo’s involved. But I guarantee you I would not have experienced the same opportunities for head-scratching, introspection, contemplation, and “Aha!” revelation as I have in doing it myself.

When Proverbs 27:17 tells us, “Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another,” it is not describing a frictionless process. There are sparks. There is resistance. There is work. There is frustration and genuine effort involved.

In the end, though, there is also a finished product that would not be produced any other way.

Abundant blessings;