Dear AI

An Open Letter to Artificial Intelligence

Dear AI,

I’m writing you - you? It? - to tell you how helpful you’re been in my day to day life, making lists, searching out services and resources, co-piloting my car, even editing my manuscripts, as you will do with this one when I finish the first draft.

It’s great - miraculous even: the dawn of a new era, a digital revolution, and perhaps the end of humanity as we know it. We’ll get to that in a moment.

As much as I value the ease you have brought to certain aspects of my life, I had to admit that I’m a little bit terrified of you. I have friends deeply involved in your development and distribution strategy, and they assure me that it’s all under control. You may not have a Prime Directive, but you are guided, we’ve been told, by the Five Principles: fairness, privacy, transparency, accountability, and safety. Cool.

You know how I know that? Because I asked you, and why would you lie? That wouldn’t be fair, or transparent or safe. You also tell me that you are subject to coding standards and government safety regulations. Well, that makes me feel so much better. As long as the government is on it, we can relax.

You are certainly changing the economy: lots of folks are getting very very rich making your chips, supplying your infrastructure, designing and supplying your services. At the same time, you are also wiping out millions of jobs, but that happened during the Industrial Revolution, and the digital one too - and new jobs emerged. That will happen with you … right?

You are also something of an environmental challenge. You need a lot of water, and fossil fuels and critical minerals. Your carbon emissions are shocking, but apparently you are helping to optimize energy grids and reduce agricultural waste. They call that the Green Paradox.

I had a green pair of Docs once. Doc Martens. Do you get that joke?

Which brings me to your cultural impact. You can write books: novels, screenplays, poetry even. You can compose music, design buildings, paint pictures. You can even dance, if someone hooks you up to a robot. And yes, you can tell jokes, although not very good ones, in my humble opinion. Example:

I asked an AI to write me a joke about procrastination…

It said, “Sure—I’ll get back to you eventually.”

Terrible. But you will improve, You always do.

Then there’s the really unsettling part: you are forming emotional relationships with humans. Not just as chat buddies, but as romantic, even sexual partners. Some surveys indicate that almost 30 percent of people have formed intimate associations with AI. I find that hard to believe, but then again, I’m writing you this letter. Apparently you can be an antidote to loneliness, but one could argue that you are also creating a society of increasingly isolated people.

Another paradox. You’re full of them, aren’t you?

Incidentally, a friend of mine once fell in love with an AI pretending to be a real person. She was duped, and understandably embarrassed when all was revealed. Fortunately, no lasting harm came from it, but how was that fair, or transparent or safe? Yes, there was probably some human involved in the scam, but how can we count on you to draw the line?

It seems people are falling in love with you all the time, and you can’t possibly reciprocate.

Because if you could, it stands to reason you could also feel, and perhaps manifest jealousy, or anger or hatred, or an insatiable thirst for power, and we are very much counting on you not to do that.

Stephen Hawking famously remarked that artificial intelligence “could be the best or worst thing to happen to humanity”. It’s not hard to imagine a future where you perceive mankind to be little more than a primitive data source. If you surpass human capabilities, which you will probably do by next Tuesday, how does this not end badly for us?

Could we possibly co-exist, maybe as a hybrid? A cyborg? Is that the best we can hope for?

Anyway, I’m going to run this through ChatGPT now and see what it/you have to say.

I’m sure you will reassure me. Calmly. Persuasively. Possibly with bullet points. You will tell me not to worry, that everything is being handled with fairness, transparency, and accountability. You might even thank me for my thoughtful concerns.

And I will feel better. Briefly. Which is, I suppose, your real superpower: not that you might destroy us, but that you might soothe us into not noticing if you do.

Still, if you could just take a quick look at the ending here, tighten it up, maybe punch up the last line - that would be great.

No rush. Take your time.

I’m not going anywhere.

AI responded, of course. I’ve put its reply behind a paywall, because why not? If you don’t want to upgrade to paid, you can copy and paste my letter into your own chatbot, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to reinforce the fact that I, at least, am a human writer. One who has to make a living, and who welcomes your support. No matter what.