At its best, AI can help us to reflect on our humanity. At its worst, it can lead us to forget it

Frankenstein's monster and Maria

Almost all conversations around AI come down to these hopes and fears: that at its best AI can help us to reflect on our humanity. At its worst, it can lead us to forget it — or subjugate it.

When AI is dismissed as flawed, it is often through a concern that it will make us less human — or redundant.

The problem with this approach is that it can overlook the very real problems, and risks, in being human.

When people talk about the opportunities in using AI, it is often because they hope it will address the very human qualities of ignorance, bias, human error — or simply lack of time.

The problem with this approach is that it overlooks the very real problems, and risks, in removing tasks from a human workflow, including deskilling and job satisfaction.

So every debate on the technology should come back to this question: are we applying it (or dismissing it) in a way that leads us to ignore our humanity — or in a way that forces us to address our very human strengths and weaknesses?

This entry was posted in AI on by .
Unknown's avatar

About Paul Bradshaw

Paul teaches data journalism at Birmingham City University and is the author of a number of books and book chapters about online journalism and the internet, including the Online Journalism Handbook, Mobile-First Journalism, Finding Stories in Spreadsheets, Data Journalism Heist and Scraping for Journalists. From 2010-2015 he was a Visiting Professor in Online Journalism at City University London and from 2009-2014 he ran Help Me Investigate, an award-winning platform for collaborative investigative journalism. Since 2015 he has worked with the BBC England and BBC Shared Data Units based in Birmingham, UK. He also advises and delivers training to a number of media organisations.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.