rejecting a life without people

This is the sketchbook version of the AI policy I am writing for my consulting firm, Future Emergent.

Future Emergent envisions a world where everyone treats every being with care and dignity. Creativity, clarity, and connection are the values at the heart of everything I do. It's hard to fake these values. Nobody can replicate the ingenuity and insight that is unique to humans. Nothing can replace the compassion and empathy we have for each other. We all play a role in creating a just society. We deserve to belong even if our worth is not obvious to the powerful.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has high value in a capitalist system like ours. Companies "succeed" when they have exploited and eliminated as many workers as possible. AI also offers consumers a frictionless and convenient future. The AI industry wants us to consider it our friend, therapist, taxi, and toy. Billionaire and millionaire investors have sunk countless amounts of cash into AI. AI promises a world that seems appealing to both business and consumer interests—a world without humans. But AI won't replace humans. AI can only displace them.

AI is less than a decade old but we know the environmental and psychological damage it can cause. We know that data centers bring even more harm to the communities not powerful enough to fight them. It's true that many of the comforts in our daily lives cause harm to people and communities. I try to resist those too whenever I can. For me, the total cost of AI does not outweigh whatever benefits it may bring. It's a wasted investment; a cost I don't have to sink.

AI at Future Emergent

AI is a tool I choose to use as little as possible and always with intention. AI can never replace the decisions I make as a consultant. In its current state, there is little that AI can do that I can’t do better. By using AI, we train it to better mimic (but still not replace) our work. I choose not to take part in that.

• I won't use AI to create reports, conduct research, or make recommendations.
• I refuse the use of all generative AI in the work I deliver to my clients.
• I will continue to contract and work with humans whenever I can.

I use an AI tool to transcribe most of the meetings I facilitate or take part in. This software helps me locate direct quotes or topics that come up in these sessions. I will never share the output of this tool with a client or community member.

The decisions we make about the ethical and moral stances we hold will always be personal. AI may have appropriate uses for other people in other jobs or industries. It just doesn't hold value for me. I don't need it to create the world I want to live in. I would rather have a life full of people.

the appeal of AI

I wanted my AI policy to be concise and straightforward for clients and colleagues alike. The text above and the references below will live on my company's website. But I've spent several weeks thinking about this and my last post on AI. I wanted to sort through my thoughts a bit more before I close this topic for a while.

I think for most people, AI is a "why not?" tool. It's already on the app or website we were using anyway. I used a chatbot this week when my accounting app's help desk replaced its search function with one. For other folks, AI is more like a novelty or toy. My weather app has an AI "chat" feature that gives snarky replies to questions. I used it once or twice and lost interest. These kinds of uses feel like a passing phase. I bet they'd disappear if AI became more expensive or went away altogether. There are two groups of AI users that I'm most worried about.

AI is now beginning to act as a therapist or health professional. Or it tells people they're always the wronged one in a relationship. It tells kids that they're better off dead. I don't see how AI companies will solve these problems. OpenAI made their GPT less sycophantic in a newer update and their users revolted. As many have noted in contrast, the u.s. government banned lawn darts after it killed just 3 kids. What makes AI special enough to dodge that kind of scrutiny?

I'm also worried about the folks who see AI as a tool that does work "better" than them. It rewrites the tone of their emails to seem friendlier. It composes the "perfect" fan letter to an athlete. I think about the level of stress on most people these days. Is AI successful because it makes the boring parts of our jobs easier? Does it write a better email than we do when we don’t care about sending a stupid email? Does it matter that our email isn’t creative—isn’t a work of human ingenuity—when the recipient will skim its contents between meetings anyway? Do people feel like something, anything would be better than their best?

AI users like these came to mind when I read an essay by Karen Maezen Miller earlier this month. She writes that the teacher Maezumi Roshi was fond of saying, "It is impossible not to do your best. You just don't think it's your best." I started to wonder if AI was exploiting people's insecurities the way other products do. If AI produces results that are "good enough," why isn't the "good enough" of people, well, good enough?

I know that there's plenty of conflicting facts about AI, and that I have some bias against it. If it's any defense, I still say "thank you" to Siri when it tells me if the restaurant I want to go to is open. I hope that's good enough for now.

references

I based my policy on the resources below. Check them out for more information.

Keeping Bandcamp Human, Bandcamp

Why we created (and abide by) an AI Policy, Work in Progress Consulting

A Tool's Errand, be the future