I have an ambiguous relationship with artificial intelligence. I can’t make up my mind whether it’s the great leap forward, the next industrial revolution or a way for the tech bros to make a lot of money out of governments and people around the world at the people’s expense.
I’ve had a go at using most free and commercially available AI models and the thing I find most revealing is how unintuitive AI can be.
Now I know that any artificial intelligence model is only as good as the information it is trained on, but at the same time how can we be sure that the knowledge it is being trained on is accurate relevant and unbiased?
Whilst it’s very difficult to find a human being who is always accurate, relevant and unbiased (and that includes me), it seems to me that AI exists out there in the ether somewhere sucking up vast amounts of energy and natural resources and is costing a lot more than it costs to run a human being.
At the same time it seems pretty scandalous that people who make things through the creativity of their mind aren’t being properly paid by the tech bros who continue to use their copyrighted material to train their AI babies.
It reminds me of the music industry in the early part of the 21st-century when streaming and downloads completely undermined income for the majority of musicians. And, I can’t be confident that the damage music streaming and downloads did to the music industry will ever be fully repaired.
If artificial intelligence is going to make a difference to the lives of ordinary people, we need to be clear about how ordinary people will benefit from it. Not only in terms of how it could improve their lives, but also in terms of how the money to be made from AI can be fairly distributed. For example, if the tech bros want to use our health data to train their AI models, then yes that could work for the public good by identifying people who are at risk of particular conditions say and alerting them before their health deteriorates. However, shouldn’t the tech Bros be paying people for the use of their data? Whilst we may all benefit from AI eventually, for the majority of us it’s hard to see what the benefits are at the moment.
Yes, AI might take over some of the more mundane tasks in life like filling in forms, writing emails, constructing reports and doing a rough analysis of information. But what it cant do is replace human connections, relationships, love and affection, communication and creativity. In social care these are the things that are important to good quality care and support. If… AI leaves us more time to connect with people then that’s a good thing. If AI leaves people alone, lonely and more isolated than they were before, that will not be a good thing.
After all, in the great scheme of life isn’t love, laughter and emotional connection fundamental to being human? Those are the things that I would never want AI to replace.
Jim Thomas
March 2025
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