What exactly are we chasing after?

Of late, I have been trying to think more deeply about how I feel about ai. Its pervasiveness annoys and exhausts me, and while I have no active experience using it purposefully, I’ve encountered it many times, because it’s been impossible not to. Off the top of my head, here are just a few examples: call screens when I make phone calls at work, web search ai summaries, and generated images on the web. There are many concerns about ai, and I’ve read a number of excellent posts over the past several months that have expressed them beautifully. And I am in lockstep with those concerns, but, as they’ve already been laid out so well, I won’t re-list them here. Instead, I would like to talk a bit about my thought process. Q: So, where has my brain taken me? A: Through a questioning process, where I have attempted to examine my feelings, gather and organize my thoughts, and come to some conclusions. Some of those questions can sound half-silly. Am I just a curmudgeon? A stereotypical…