I LOVE THE PAST. I’M NOT AFRAID OF THE FUTURE.

Some thoughts on artificial intelligence, a changing world, and the courage to keep learning

Don’t be left behind.

Are you among those who have decided that artificial intelligence is something to worry about, criticize, or avoid altogether, without ever having tried it?

I have a suggestion. Give it a chance.

I have lived long enough to remember when television was going to ruin family life, calculators would keep children from learning arithmetic, microwave ovens were regarded with suspicion, and computers threatened to replace people and eliminate jobs. The Internet arrived, and with it came another round of predictions about the end of life as we knew it.

Well, look at us now.

Not every prediction was foolish, and not every concern was without merit. Technology has changed our lives in ways both good and bad. But imagine what we would have missed if we had refused to participate in those changes simply because we were uncertain of what came next.

Today, artificial intelligence has become the latest subject of considerable hand-wringing. We hear about privacy, misinformation, lost jobs, enormous data centers, demands on our electrical grid, and the possibility that machines will one day become smarter than the people who created them.

Those are legitimate concerns, worthy of serious attention. But somewhere between reasonable caution and outright rejection, I believe we are missing an important opportunity.

We can be concerned about the future without being afraid to participate in it.

I write a blog. For a while, I had a podcast. I take photographs with my phone, research the history of old houses and the people who lived in them, and spend a considerable amount of time following one question into another. I am not a technology expert, nor do I aspire to become one. But, I do pretty well for myself. I have simply learned to use the tools that suit my purposes.

Artificial intelligence has become one of them.

I have never purchased one of those fancy photographic programs to improve my pictures. Yet when I photograph the commercial architecture along Main Street in Rocky Mount, I invariably find a utility pole, a parked car, or some other modern intrusion spoiling the view of a beautiful old building.

Along comes ChatGPT.

I can ask it to remove the offending automobile or utility pole, and there before me is a much better look at the architecture I wanted people to appreciate in the first place. The building hasn’t changed. I have simply found another way to help people see it.

My research has benefited enormously. I have been led to sources, records, and historical references I would never have known existed. One discovery leads to another, and suddenly I am following a trail that would have been difficult, if not impossible, to find on my own.

That doesn’t mean I accept every answer without question. Artificial intelligence can be wrong, quite confidently wrong. Depending on what you’re working on you are best served if you verify the information. My depth of work can trust that lyrics or the whole poem is correct. It is a remarkable research companion for the likes of me.

There are the small pleasures.

I can remember the feeling a passage left with me while unable to recall the exact words. I can describe what I do remember, and like magic, there is the information, or at least a promising place to begin looking.

I find that delightful.

None of this means I have abandoned books, stopped thinking for myself, or surrendered my imagination to a machine. On the contrary, AI has given me additional ways to pursue the interests I already have.

And isn’t that what technology, at its best, is supposed to do?

There is also the sheer pleasure of discovering what AI can create. I recently gave ChatGPT a photograph of myself and asked it to imagine an illustration reflecting my work with the House Biography Series. The result brought together so many of the things I love.

A Little AI Magic — I gave ChatGPT a photograph of myself and asked it to create an image reflecting my work with the House Biography Series. There I am, surrounded by historic houses, architectural drawings, and books, all brought together in a way I could never have created on my own. My imagination supplied the idea; artificial intelligence helped bring it to life. What fun!

I understand that the discussion becomes more complicated when we consider the enormous data centers being built to support artificial intelligence. They demand electricity, require cooling systems that may consume considerable water, and bring questions about infrastructure, the environment, and the communities where they are located.

Those concerns are real. They deserve thoughtful answers, not dismissal.

But surely we are capable of holding two ideas in our minds at the same time. We can recognize the extraordinary possibilities of artificial intelligence while insisting that the problems associated with it be addressed.

Why must our choice be between embracing a new technology and protecting the communities in which we live? Why can’t we be determined to do both?

I don’t want to see us turn our backs on a remarkable new tool because we have not yet figured out all the angles to accommodate it responsibly. I want to see the same imagination and determination that created these technological advances devoted to solving the problems that accompany them.

Better cooling systems, more efficient energy use, responsible locations, and infrastructure improvements are not reasons to give up. They are challenges demanding solutions.

Think about the extraordinary accomplishment of sending men to the moon. Think of the engineers who have since developed reusable spacecraft and brought astronauts safely home. Elon Musk and SpaceX are examples of what happens when people refuse to accept that a formidable technical challenge cannot be overcome.

Of course, rocket engineering and the demands of data centers are different problems. But the principle is the same. Human ingenuity should be put to work solving difficulties, not used as an excuse to abandon possibilities.

I come back to that old expression about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I’m not asking people to abandon caution. I’m asking them not to confuse caution with fear.

We can insist on safeguards, demand accountability, and protect the interests of our communities while still welcoming the remarkable gifts that human ingenuity continues to place before us.

Surely the answer to a problem is to work toward solving it, not automatically to reject the very thing that made the problem worth confronting.

There is another aspect of all this that I find personally important.

I belong to a generation that has watched the world change almost beyond recognition. I remember the telephone attached to the wall, encyclopedias lined up on a bookshelf, handwritten letters, and trips to the library to find information that today appears on a screen in seconds.

I loved much about that world. I still do.

But loving the world we came from does not require us to turn our backs on the world that is arriving.

Being devoted to the past is not the same thing as being afraid of the future.

I have come to believe that fear of change can become a habit, one that gradually persuades us to distrust whatever is unfamiliar. We become so determined to protect the world we know that we risk closing the door on the gifts the next one has to offer.

And what a loss that would be.

Think of all the remarkable advances we have witnessed in our lifetimes, discoveries and inventions that previous generations could scarcely have imagined. How many of those gifts might we have missed if fear had been allowed the final word?

There is a difference between exercising good judgment and allowing apprehension to make our decisions for us. We can ask difficult questions, insist upon safeguards, and acknowledge the problems that accompany new technology without turning away from its possibilities.

In my work with historic preservation, I am forever encouraging people to recognize the value of what has been handed down to us. We should protect it, care for it, and carry its best qualities into the future.

I feel much the same way about ourselves.

Our experiences, our judgment, our accumulated knowledge, and our curiosity are not made obsolete by a new technology. They are precisely what we bring to it.

So I am not suggesting that everyone rush out and embrace artificial intelligence without reservation. I am suggesting something much simpler.

Try it. Ask it a question. Explore an interest. See whether it can help you do something you already enjoy doing.

Then make up your own mind, based on experience rather than apprehension.

I have no intention of being left behind simply because the world has invented something new.

There is too much still to learn, too much still to discover, and too much life ahead to spend it looking backward.

— Stepheny Houghtlin