In movies like “2001: A Space Odyssey,” artificial intelligence like HAL 9000 rise up and attempt (and in the case of movies like “The Terminator,” succeed) to kill humans. The potential dangers that arise with artificial intelligence have been on people’s minds since they were first thought of as a theoretical idea. Why then, when presented with AI like ChatGPT, OpenAI and even Siri, are we not even batting an eye, and celebrating the introduction of these AI models into everyday life? The aspect of humanity that makes us truly special is not the ability to walk upright, our opposable thumbs or even our ability to speak. What makes a human, human, is our ability to think critically, and come up with complex ideas and thoughts that the rest of the animal kingdom cannot. Why are we delegating aspects of what makes us special to the machine? 

As a human being, I feel like my thoughts and ideas are important. More than this, I feel that my ideas are my own. If I were to ask a machine to write a paper for me around my prompt or even to edit and format my work, it would immediately cease to be my own. If I were to have an assignment where I am supposed to give my perspective or thoughts, or even just brainstorm a couple of ideas, I am giving up a piece of humanity by delegating this task to the machine. By letting the machine come up with ideas for me, write for me and edit my work for me, I’m not producing anything- the machine is. At this point, the University of Maine might as well be putting ChatGPT on people’s diplomas instead of their own names. I would personally rather deal with the consequences of getting a question wrong or getting a few points off on an essay than totally delegate what makes me a unique individual with complex and meaningful ideas to a machine and pass them off as my own. 

It sounds like a joke and it sounds silly to say, but this is exactly how the machines take over in movies like “2001” or “The Terminator.” First, we start by letting them do little tasks for us, then we give over some of our decision-making to them and eventually, we have AI terminators hunting us down. We end up living in bunkers underground, eating rats and drinking sewer water. Not to say this is necessarily within the actual realm of possibility (though it could be), but this is just an extreme example of the kind of dangerous path we’re going down by outsourcing what makes us special and unique to a machine that can never truly replicate our humanity. This is not a call to action, it’s a call to attention that we as a society need to be more careful of what we do with technology and more aware of what we lose when we don’t take responsibility and agency over our own minds.