a day ago
Frankenstein Fallacy: Fear of the AI is the Default Setting
AI is more than just safe. It's your digital bodyguard. Everyone's afraid it will go rogue. But no one talks about the fact that AI is already fighting the real rogue tech and winning. For example Microsoft uses AI to spot threats faster than any human could. MIT built AI to sniff out deepfakes with 98 per cent accuracy according to a MIT-IBM Watson Lab report, 2023. YouTube and Meta use AI to delete violent or abusive content before it goes viral, says Meta Transparency Report, Q4 2023. Basically, when it comes to stopping the worst of the internet, AI is the bouncer at the digital club. In Ukraine, AI is literally helping predict attacks and save lives on the battlefield.
So let's take a step back and have a tiny existential moment. The ancient Greeks had this idea that—techne, Greek for tech—reflects the soul of its maker. So if your tech is cruel, maybe you need to work on your soul. The same applies to AI. It's not about whether the bot is good or evil. It's about what we build into it. Europe's AI Act (2024) and India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act (2023) are trying to put some guardrails in place.
But honestly? The biggest guardrail is us. Not laws. Not kill switches. Our intent to protect ourselves from our baser instincts. When ChatGPT got wrecked at chess, instead of breaking, it helped. We're not in a sci-fi thriller. We're in the tutorial level of a co-op game. And the bot is the one holding the map, helping us find the loot, while we complain that it might steal your XP. The future isn't about replacing humans. It's about teaming up with machines that don't need coffee, ego boosts, or bathroom breaks. So yeah, be cautious. Be smart. But don't be paranoid. The match isn't over. We're still playing. And the bot is just waiting to help us make the next best move. The question is are we building an evil overlord? Or a slightly awkward, insanely helpful sidekick who works 24/7 and doesn't care about credit?
