ChatGPT Wants You To Know It's Not The Antichrist

There are two kinds of people today: 

1. People who wake up every morning and bless AI for making their lives easier.

2. People who wake up every morning and plot how to lead a calvary charge down Silicon Valley.

The Industrial Revolution? You mean when humanity decided to swap out sweat, tears, and the occasional plague for the relentless hum of machines?

Beginning in the 1760s, the Industrial Revolution swept through the world and drastically affected every facet of everyday life, from agriculture to manufacturing to transportation.

Factories sprung up like mushrooms; so did the machines to populate them. Employment was democratised. Median household income saw a sustained upsurge. Quality of life improved. Cost of products were driven down thanks to mass production.

But not according to the Luddites.

You know how there's always that one person? First name Doom, last name Pessimismo. Party pooper personified.

In the case of the Industrial Revolution, it was a group of disgruntled English textile workers known as the Luddites. These guys weren't having any of the progress propaganda. 

Quickly becoming the poster children for anti-machine sentiments, they took to smashing looms and other machinery. Their logic? These contraptions from hell were out to take their jobs and ruin their lives.

To be fair to them, their sentiments weren't without basis.  The global shift from manual to mechanised production did lead to significant job displacement.

If there's one thing humanity is big on, it's adaptation. We adapt books to films, films to shows, shows to songs, songs to clothes. The chain goes on.

So, of course, society adapted to metal, wood, and plastic. Machines did not annihilate the job market and create some kind of economic Resident Evil. Instead, they reshaped it.

True, some traditional jobs vanished into thick smog. But new industries and roles also emerged. People learnt new skills, economies flourished. 

The great metal monster? Well, it did materialise. As a toaster.

If you get through a day in these modern times without saying - or seeing - the word AI, you're possibly living under a rock. 

The Industrial Revolution took nearly a century to do its deeds. The generative Artificial Intelligence Revolution, however, has gained momentum in recent years and is hurtling the planet towards the future at beyond breakneck pace.

In a few years, sci-fi film plots that sounded simply fantastic are suddenly been-there-done-that.  From healthcare, through finance, to business, and down to the end-user scale, AI has transformed the way we live and interact with one another, and it's not even done.

There are bots to diagnose diseases before their symptoms even show up. Cars that drive themselves are quickly becoming mundane. And we're now so used to streaming platforms reading our minds and giving us what we want that we can't even remember what it was like before that.

But you can't speed past a street without cops thinking you've got a dead body on you. Right?

It all depends on whom you ask. But the Luddites are back and the thread (punintended) is up from where it got dropped.

AI will steal your job, your kids, your money. It will invade your privacy, your brain, your being. Silicon Valley has sold our collective human soul to the devil for hard, cold cash. Goodbye, humanity as we know it. It was great doing business with you.

Okay, not everyone holds the manic theories above (but make no mistake, plenty do). Some people are just genuinely perturbed by all the changes zapping through the world. And that's natural. 

For early humans, the comfort zone didn't get all this bad rap it gets today about keeping you down. It literally kept you alive. And our brains haven't really caught up to the fact that we no longer live in the wild with remorseless creatures. We're super safe these days (relatively). So, change is still looked at askance by our ancient brains. And that's alright, provided we realise what's going on.

We often fear what we don't understand, said Tuvok. And nowhere is this saying more true than in the masses' approach to the topic of artificial intelligence.

AI is a tool. And, like any tool ever made, it really absolutely depends on how you use it. A bread knife can get you a nice slice, and it can get you a life sentence. It's all in what you're cutting.

If you're all for achieving more with less stress, there's no need to demonise AI. That's exactly what it's here to help you with.

In Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone, Lord Voldemort flexes his inner Socrates when he tells Harry: "There is no good and evil; there is only power, and those too weak to seek it."

Now, Voldy isn't particularly a good life coach, but there's some application here: There's just AI, and those too afraid to embrace it.

AI is here to stay. We can demonise it all we want. It's going nowhere.

The wiser thing would be to embrace this brave new world. How?

Thought you'd never ask. Here are some actionable points from ChatGPT itself (with my input in parentheses):

1. Educate Yourself: Learn about AI and its applications. Understanding how it works will demystify it and reduce fear. (If you spend a night under your bed, there's no way anyone can ever again convince you there are monsters there.)
2. Upskill and Reskill: Adapt to the changing job market by acquiring new skills relevant to an AI-driven world. Online courses and workshops can be invaluable. (And a lot of them free.)
3. Leverage AI in Daily Life: Use AI tools to enhance productivity and efficiency in your work and personal life. From smart assistants to AI-driven analytics, there are countless ways to benefit. (Look, you're already using AI. Spotify? Check. Hey Google? Check. Might as well go the whole nine yards.)
4. Advocate for Ethical AI: Support and promote ethical AI practices. Engage in discussions about AI regulation and the ethical implications of AI development. (Rather than seek its demise, seek its purification. That's hero behaviour.)
5. Stay Informed: Keep up with AI advancements and trends. Being informed helps you stay ahead and adapt to changes more smoothly. (If you can't beat them, get ahead of them.)
6. Collaborate with AI: Instead of viewing AI as a competitor, see it as a collaborator. Use it to handle repetitive tasks so you can focus on more creative and strategic endeavours. (You, not ChatGPT, are your own biggest competition.)

Change can be scary. But it also leads to progress and improvement. 

In the near future, AI will become as ubiquitous as TikTok dances, but not half as annoying. Might as well embrace it now and get on with it. Especially as, if history is anything to go by, some poor new thing will sooner or later rise to bear the brunt of the doomsaying.

And remember, just because ChatGPT knows your preferences doesn't mean it’s plotting world domination – it just wants to help you find the perfect cat meme. It says so itself.