What do you think is the future of AI?

Funny this particular prompt comes up, a sort of trifecta of motivations to scribble some thoughts down.

One, I’ve got this shirt I bought a while back spurred by an advert on Instagram (!). Abraham Lincoln playing an electric guitar.

Well, I love music, I love to play the guitar, and I love Abe Lincoln (the idea of him and most of what I’ve come to know about his ways; of course; I didn’t know him; he died 102 years before I was born).

So I got the shirt. I love wearing it. And recently I was thinking recently, what a creative image that most likely came from an AI agent blending a famous figure from the 1800s with an instrument that didn’t exist until 1932. That’s very cool.

Then one morning this week I was on the morning commute and heard about a new podcast on NPR called Machine Gods, hosted and run by two former New York Times journalists who focus on technology; the new pod aims to cover the fast-moving, ever-evolving, possibly precarious and potentially catastrophic world of artificial intelligence.

And now this prompt. I suppose the previous paragraph tipped my hand a little bit about my attitude on AI.

In short, in my view there is a lot of productivity and new methods and possible advancements across many areas of study, many sectors of the economy, health, sciences, and society, much possible benefit, but also potentially catastrophic harm.

For the purposes of this prompt and post, I’ll just say this in summary:

I think AI needs to be considered and controlled in its development in a way that affords it as much if not more thoughtful, careful decisions as have been applied to the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Let us consider and rely on thoughtful experts, and other human leaders (like Pope Leo XIV) to help our global society make good decisions about the development and uses of artificial intelligence. 

Allow it to be cool and helpful. But let’s be very, very careful. And keep our humanity in tact.