I’m prepared to just put this out there and have it be available as an L-take in the future, but I really want to make a statement on how I see things as they stand in 2024.

“AI” systems in the present landscape don’t take us anywhere new. Large Language Models consume words that have already been written, and spit them back out in a different order. It affords us with some new abilities, but it’s not a magic box.

Some people have the impression that “AI” will just do everything for us in the future. Give the machine a prompt and you can achieve your wildest dreams. In my opinion, that’s the wrong way to look at it. The current generation of AI tools remind me an awful lot of in-car navigation.

Why?

AI won’t get you anywhere new.

Everything that “AI” tools do now is something that has already been done. Humans have done it, so the machine can copy it.

In-car navigation takes you along roads that have already been built to places that other people already live and work in. As soon as you go off the road, you’re on your own. That’s as true in a car navigation system as it is with an “AI” model.

It can hold you back though.

Have you ever been in a car with someone that always uses the navigation system? Have you tried to get them to deviate from the course for a quick detour? How well did that work?

A phenomenon that I’ve observed anecdotally (and you may have as well), is that the reliance on navigation systems to get from place to place has resulted in a huge number of people who have no idea where they are in the world or now to navigate it. They’re lost without the machine to tell them where to turn.

An over-reliance on AI tools to do basic work can lead to the loss of ability to that work for yourself.

This is not to say that I never use navigation, and all AI tools are evil. I just think that they have a time and a place and you should always keep your ability to work without them fresh.

My uncle is an engineer and he used to tell me how he intentionally did mental math regularly to keep himself sharp. I thought it was silly when I was younger. I get it now.

There’s a good part to all this.

Truly innovative products will still require human ingenuity and creativity.

There’s no machine that can or will replace the human mind. Unless you let it.