Fire Can Kill Us Too
AI is great in many different ways, but so is fire. Fire was a great invention until we released the damages that it’s capable of.
Everybody is focused on what Artificial Intelligence (AI) does, but nobody seems to be thinking about what it doesn’t. We are all caught up on how AI can enhance our lives, change our daily habits, and make life generally more efficient. I can’t argue, I think AI can absolutely do those things and it has a place in our lives for positive reasons. Keep that in mind, because what I’m about to say will ask tough questions that contradict my stance.
But for good reason.
These are questions like: What is its impact? How does it change the way we think? What does it do to our mental health when we rely on a “second brain” to do our thinking, decision-making, and research for us?
I remember as a kid when we used these flashcards called “brain teasers” to test our knowledge and keep the mind sharp. That was back when there were no apps, no smartphones, and no internet. If you didn’t know something, you looked it up in a (drumroll…) …. Encyclopedia. No Google or Yahoo. No Bing searches. Just an encyclopedia or you asked someone until you found the answer.
But now, we can’t just click open a browser and search for the answer amongst the thousands of answers a quick Google search will bring us. It’s nice and incredibly convenient but takes away a lot of different aspects of life. Now there’s no need to ask someone else via verbal communication, which takes away from the human aspect of communication. You could argue that the removal of that aspect of communication has been replaced with other forms like text, messaging, social media, and even podcasts, but you could also argue against it. The digital revolution has been naturally a part of human evolution, but it all has one thing in common—technology. Specifically, digital technology.
Which begs the question: How does technology already impact our thinking? How does it impact our social skills and communication? How does it impact the future?
What is perceived as convenience is also a hindrance. Take social media, text, and messaging. They are all forms of communication yet take out the personal side of things. Now you can talk faster but with less personality. Information is shared quicker, as are opinions and original thought, but body language, mood, focus—it’s all gone when it’s just written word.
Not to mention, people say things behind the security of the internet that they would never say to your face. Digital forms of technology have created a new level of bravery from people now coined “keyboard warriors”. Mike Tyson said it best when he said, “social media made you all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it”.
So how has that changed our way of communication, and also, how has it changed how we receive that communication?
Where does digital technology lead us?
In my opinion, we’ve created advancements in technology for communication and education, but also made us dumber at the same time. We no longer have to think for ourselves because we can “Google it”. There’s a computer on our desk, one in our hand, and even one in our cars. We can’t get away from digital technologies. It’s literally everywhere we go. The human consciousness is now rooted in digital technology.
We no longer look to obtain intelligence, but rather, obtain where to get intelligence. It’s more important to know where to look than to know what is being looked for. I don’t need to know the difference between natural and organic foods because I can look it up on my phone, or even ask an automation program like Alexa, Siri, or Google to explain it to me. I don’t need to know how many cups are in a quart because I can just ask Alexa to tell me. Frontiers of Technology said it best in the 2021 National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence: “With a remarkable increase of investments in the global AI industry over the past five years and an unprecedented amount of general R&D dollars being invested worldwide, there is no AI slowdown in sight—only new horizons for deployed AI.” (1).
Are we even human anymore?
Throughout writing my first novel, Acts of Lies, I’ve done extensive research on not just AI, but digital technology. I’ve explored the metaverse. I’ve talked with AI programs like ChatGPT and others. I’ve explored how we’ve emerged ourselves into digital technology and what that really means for human function, and I’ve come up with this question: Are we even human anymore?
Humans exist while technology has grown over decades and even centuries. But what if it’s gone too far and kept us from functioning as humans? This reliance on digital technologies has had an impact on us, good and bad there’s no doubt about it. But what I want to focus on is the psychological health of us as a race now that we rely so heavily on digital technology.
Depression is on the rise. Since 2004, depression in US teenagers has risen and took a big jump after 2012 (4). In 2009-2011, two-thirds of 15–17-year-olds were using social media on a daily basis (2). After that, it rose even more. Mobile phones and other internet-connected devices provide an opportunity to continuously collect objective information on behavior in the context of people’s real lives, generating a rich data set that can provide insight into the extent and timing of mental health needs in individuals (3). Screen time is obviously a new concern as it has demanded more of our attention taken us away from human interaction and pointed us toward a screen, no matter how big or small.
A perfect example: you don’t even have to leave the house to rent a movie, or watch one, for that matter, anymore. There’s no more Blockbuster video to go to when you want to rent a movie. Even movie theatres have taken a hit post-COVID because the streaming services found ways to get new movies into the living rooms of people just weeks after a theatrical release. You used to have to wait months, if not a full year before a movie was out for you to rent. Now you cannot just rent it, but own it, mere weeks after release. Some movies during COVID even released digitally only, skipping the closed theatres.
So, are we human anymore? Digital technology does all the work for us. From apps that make a grocery list for us, to tapping a phone on the register to pay for my gas, to having a social media platform filter the news for me and keeping me updated with friends, family, and even celebrities. It’s all there for us. The effort to find entertainment and knowledge is gone. Instead, the world is flooded with it.
An article I read on Harvard’s website stated that digital devices can interfere with everything from sleep to creativity (4). That statement makes sense, because why be creative when I can research ideas on my phone? The growing human brain is constantly building neural connections while pruning away less-used ones, and digital media use plays an active role in that process, according to Pediatrician Michael Rich (4). The more we stay up late playing on our phones, the less sleep we get, and sleep is a critical part of the human body recovery and maintenance. A kid might stay up late and then go to class the next day, staying perfectly awake through his/her algebra class, but the next day does not remember a thing from that class. It’s not about intelligence, because let’s assume that kid is a straight-A student. It’s about the lack of sleep allowing the brain to be cognitively sharp during class with ability to store the knowledge obtained during the class.
But why remember when AI and other digital technologies can do it for us?
And that’s where my concern is. Our reliance on digital technology has changed the way we think and act. We no longer have to think on our toes as much because Google can return me results just as fast as someone can develop a thought or solution. AI can create a battle plan just as fast, or faster, than someone with years of military experience creating battle plans. AI can also write papers for kids in school, automate conversations for a podcaster, and even do research for topics on our behalf. So, when we are challenged to think for ourselves, will we be able to? The reliance on digital technology concerns me with how sharp we’ll be psychologically in the future, and even today. Consequences of AI and dependency on digital technology has taken center stage in my novel, Acts of Lies.
Fire Can Kill us Too
In conclusion, I think digital technology is summed up by Pediatrician Michael Rich best. “Fire was a great discovery to cook our food, but we had to learn it could hurt and kill us as well”. Digital technology is the same way. It can help us out, there’s no argument from me in that. It’s been incredibly helpful in my research and academic schoolwork. I wouldn’t be as successful without it. I’d also not have access or the ability to find the references cited below without the internet. But you have to wonder if the positive impact outweighs the cost of changing human interaction and abilities. Like fire, digital tech can help us, but we have to find out our boundaries with it first. If we depend on it to do more than it’s designed to do, it will burn us.
Sources
- National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence report: 2021 Final Report – NSCAI
- Twenge, J.M., Martin, G.N. & Spitzberg, B.H., Pop.Medica Culture 8, 3290345 (2019).
- Haidt, J. & Allen, N. Scrutinizing the effects of digital technology on mental health, Nature.com (2020). https://nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00296-x#ref-CR1
- Ruder, D.B., Screen time and the brain, Harvard University (2019). Screen Time and the Brain | Harvard Medical School