Aaaaand Now⌠AI: My Biggest Tech Fear
Ooof. AI. This is the big one for me. Out of all the emerging technologies weâve talked about, AI is the one that makes my stomach flip. I genuinely dislike the rise of AI, how quickly itâs spreading, how deeply itâs embedding itself into everyday life, and how casually weâre letting it replace things that feel fundamentally human.
AI-generated music? Art? Photography? Do we really need that? Human creativity already feels stretched thin in this hyper-digital world, and now weâre handing over even more of it to algorithms. AI canât (and wonât) replace real art, but itâs definitely trying, and thatâs what scares me most. Everywhere I look online itâs Meta updates, virtual realities, âAI tools to make your life easier,â and even wearable tech glasses that can basically read your thoughts. I mean there goes our last sliver of privacy?? It all feels a little too Terminator for my liking. When we start losing the ability to distinguish AI from real life, something inside me feels deeply unsettled. Young people already struggle with impossible beauty standards, and now we have AI-generated influencers made from thousands of âperfectâ faces. Itâs disturbing. And in schools, students can avoid developing critical thinking, writing skills, or even basic comprehension because they can plug anything into ChatGPT and get an instant answer.
And then there are the issues weâve talked about endlessly: AI hallucinations, misinformation, bias, the list goes on. I donât think AI belongs in the classroom at all, but it feels like we canât escape it.
The only âsolutionâ I can even imagine is designing assignments where students canât use AI, things that require in-class work, pen to paper, real thinking. But that brings its own challenges. Not every student thrives in a traditional classroom setting (myself included), and some physically need to type. How do we protect learning without excluding the learners who rely on tech? I genuinely donât have the answer.
And donât even get me started on the environmental impact. The energy consumption of massive servers, the water used to cool them, during a climate crisis this feels absolutely wild. Like⌠are we serious?
Another thing that drives me mad: professors using AI to write lectures or lesson plans. Why am I paying tuition for an AI professor? And seeing AI being marketed to elementary students as a âfriendly helperâ? No thanks. AI is not a friend. AI is not human. Pretending otherwise feels wrong to me. Weâre losing critical developmental skills, the satisfaction of working hard toward something, the collaboration that comes from peer editing and problem-solving. It all brings me right back to my first reflection, my longing for simpler, more human times.
Computers might have been the end of the simple era⌠but AI feels like the end of something much bigger.
I donât like it, I donât want it in classrooms, and honestly? It terrifies me.
The end.
Photo by Nima Motaghian Nejad on Unsplash
Photo by Nahrizul Kadri on Unsplash
Photo by Dylan Hunter on Unsplash