From Awareness to Agency: What to Know About AI and Algorithmic Safety

I recently gave a talk to a university and health care audience on an important topic to me: AI and algorithmic awareness and safety. And in the weeks since, barely one has gone by without something new crossing my desk that tells me this topic is only becoming more relevant. So I thought I would take the essence of what I thought and distill it into a blog post. Let me say up front what this is not. This post is not anti-AI. It’s also not a plea to avoid AI, delete your accounts, or move to a cabin in the woods. I use this technology every day, and it has made me smarter, more productive, and frankly happier, and I want to share that. The point of this post is something different. The point is to use this technology with agency — to understand the hidden costs of the convenience, and to make deliberate choices about what you are willing to trade away. The friction to adopt these new tools has never been lower. And the stakes have never been higher. A quarter century of acceleration I…