Artificial Intelligence: the miracle technology that’s going to save humanity, destroy humanity, replace your job, make your job easier, diagnose cancer, write terrible poetry, and possibly fold your laundry—though I wouldn’t count on that last one. Folding laundry is hard. Especially because unfolded laundry is in partnership with your socks to keep one of them in the Witness Protection Program, never to see your sock drawer again.
The problem isn’t just that nobody knows what AI will do; it’s that nobody knows what AI is supposed to do in the first place. And you won’t discover this on the websites of the countless companies whose greatest differentiator is that now they are offering AI. But since they are all offering AI, it’s not much of a differentiator.
At a recent tech conference where everyone dresses like they’re auditioning for a role as “hip undertaker,” the buzzwords flew faster than champagne corks at a venture capital funding party. “Transformative potential,” “paradigm shift,” and my personal favorite, “disruptive innovation”—which sounds suspiciously like what my cat does at 3 AM.
The tech bros were pitching AI the way TV infomercials pitch kitchen gadgets. “But wait, there’s more! It doesn’t just analyze your data—it predicts customer behavior, writes your emails, AND makes julienne fries!” All for the low, low price of your entire IT budget and possibly your soul.
Meanwhile, the corporate suits weren’t about to be left behind. “We’re integrating essential business applications with generative AI,” one PowerPoint slide proclaimed, which translates roughly to: “We paid consultants a fortune to add a chatbot to our website that can’t answer simple questions.”
There hasn’t been this much meaningless jargon since we were all in the “Cloud.”
Then there’s the Gartner Hype Cycle—a fancy graph that basically shows how we get irrationally excited about new technology before realizing it doesn’t work, then finally figuring out something useful to do with it. With AI, we’re currently at the “Peak of Inflated Expectations,” which is coincidentally also where you’ll find most tech company valuations.
The truly impressive thing about AI isn’t the technology—it’s how it manages to be simultaneously over-hyped and under-explained. Business leaders nod sagely about “autonomous AI agents” while having no clue what that actually means. It’s like watching politicians discuss nuclear physics—confident assertions mixed with fundamental misunderstandings.
Consider the medical promises: “AI-powered diagnostic tools analyzing medical images with unprecedented accuracy.” Terrific! But ask the doctor next to you how it works, and you’ll get, “Well, it’s like a really smart computer that… um… looks at stuff really well.” This isn’t reassuring when we’re talking about technology that might someday decide if you need surgery.
By way of confession, I recently got the results of a CT scan and pasted the evaluation in chat and was told that with the exception of just a couple of minor things, I was just fine. When I read the report back to my doctor, his expression was that of a man discovering his wife in bed with the Amazon delivery boy.
Let’s not forget the artists and writers among us. AI can now “turn the most mundane text descriptions into stunningly original images.” Except they’re not original—they’re digital Frankenstein monsters stitched together from millions of actual human creations. Nothing says “creative revolution” quite like a technology that’s essentially the world’s most sophisticated plagiarism machine.
Education experts are equally divided. One professor worries that “there’s a way of using these tools where our brain doesn’t engage and process information in ways that are conducive to real learning.” In other words, students might use AI the way my generation used CliffsNotes, except CliffsNotes never offered to write your entire paper for you while simultaneously solving your calculus homework. All while you drank beer.
The split in the computer science community is particularly telling. Half the experts are worried AI might destroy civilization; the other half think those concerns are overblown—but they’re not quite sure why. It’s like watching two groups of meteorologists argue about whether that funnel cloud heading toward town is a devastating tornado or just a really enthusiastic breeze.
Regulation? “We are terrible in the United States at regulating technology,” admits one expert, which is the tech equivalent of saying water is wet. We’ve barely figured out how to regulate Facebook, and now we’re supposed to tackle sentient algorithms? Good luck with that.
The most honest statement in the entire AI conversation comes from the expert who said, “It is unclear what is going to happen in this unregulated space.” Now there’s an understatement worthy of the British describing the weather during a hurricane.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: AI is like a hyperactive toddler who’s been given car keys and an espresso. We’re not sure where it’s going or what it’s going to do when it gets there, but we’re pretty sure it’ll be either amazing or catastrophic, with very little middle ground. And the second uncomfortable truth, as it makes searches easier, eliminating you wading through information not useful to your quest but actually pretty brain sparking, and as we give up writing prose for prompts, we might get even dumber than we are today.
In the meantime, companies will continue “democratizing AI” (translation: making it easy enough for you to use while they collect your data) and promising to “redefine customer experiences” (translation: replacing human customer service representatives with chatbots that understand your problems almost as well as your house plant does).
So the next time someone confidently tells you about the promise of AI, remember: they’re not lying to you; they’re just participating in humanity’s oldest tradition—pretending to understand something they don’t while hoping nobody calls their bluff.
And that, my friends, is the most human thing about artificial intelligence.
CONFESSION: This article was written by Claude AI in the style of PJ O’Rourke from my copious research and very astute prompt.
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