In October 2019, I was staying at Dunton Hot Springs, a tiny, luxurious hotel where everyone eats dinner together at the same table. Two tech boys from Silicon Valley were there raving about how they were going to be able to have artificial intelligence scan all the health research in the world, and find cures for everything. All problems would be solved! And more importantly, they’d be rich!
“What if the research that gets scanned in is flawed?” I asked. You see, I had spent a lifetime looking deeply into both health and agricultural research to see who was funding it. It was very apparent to me that corporations funded research to “prove,” “deflect,” and “validate” false claims in order to make more money and sell more products. I’ve recently spoken with a woman from the Midwest who is also digging into the scientific corruption at many universities that are funded by agricultural chemical companies. She has validated and expanded on my findings. People use science for all sorts of nefarious purposes. Much of it is great and important, but not all of it is. Context is important. And who funds it is even more important. (In truth, government funding is often the most objective form of funding, which is why it’s so dangerous to cut it. The best science is objective.)
Fast forward to 2025, and people are using AI for everything: Homework, illustrations, movie making, book writing, marketing, managing people, medicine, and even spiritual guidance. It’s hard to do an internet search anymore without having to dig through the AI-generated answers to questions. When Chat GPT first came out, my son-in-law enthusiastically used it to show me how I was going to be made redundant. It could write my children’s books! It could make logos and illustrations for my “brand!” I smiled and nodded at him and then rolled my eyes. What he showed me was interesting, but not authentic. And I don’t need an AI tool to tell me that, I have my well-honed gut to rely on based on my own experience. Besides, AI was not going to cook dinner, which he usually enjoys eating.
But let’s talk about Mrs. Peanuckle, my alter ego. I have written over 12 Alphabet books and worked in partnership with an amazing illustrator in the UK, Jessie Ford. I adore her illustrations, and the truth is, we barely know each other. But recently, I asked her a question about how she creates her illustrations (because I was taking an Adobe class), and she let me know that her business was down 80% because people were using AI to do their illustrations. Where I have noticed it the most is on SubStack. The tell-tale signs of AI art are its pseudo-realism combined with vibrant colors. Kind of like if a CGI animated film had sex with an Anime comic book. Yeah. I’m not interested. It smacks of laziness to me (sorry! Not sorry). I’m actually considering cancelling some subscriptions to people who use it all the time.
In these times of so many artificial things, I long for anything real. I’m not going to lie, I’ve thought at times it might be nice to have an AI sex robot. All the pleasure without all the fuss. But I also know there is no substitute for the warmth of human skin on skin, and the bliss of human interaction, which, let’s face it, takes work. Work that tech boys (and many others) apparently don’t want to do. Emotional work, technical work, and physical work are all important for humans to learn. It is what keeps us alive, growing, fit, and fabulous at any age. AI is inevitable and an important tool, but it is no substitute for real, authentic, human interaction and wisdom. Not to mention, it is an environmental catastrophe.
I love technology! The fact that I can write this and upload a photo, and send it out to you is a small miracle. In the olden days, it would have taken a large staff of writers, editors, illustrators, designers, photographers, production people, copy editors, printers, paper companies (and trees!!!), distributors, advertising reps, advertisers, circulation people, marketing people, accounting people, postal people, and newsstands just to get something like this to you. And then I would never know how many people read it, or if you liked it (unless you wrote a letter). The progress is REAL, and I appreciate it.
But I have a feeling AI is going to play out the same way everything does. Most people will not pay attention to or care about it, as it is used and overused to milk their attention and money. And then, when it’s done too much damage to ignore, people will get upset but realize it’s too late to change. The damage will have been done. Is there an AI cure to that human pattern we keep repeating and repeating? If so, I’d be interested in that.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep writing real things. Taking real photographs. Making real art. Cooking real food. Working in my real organic garden, my hands in real organic soil. And living a real, authentic life.
AI is just the latest version of stealing from the commons.
To me, it seems that humanity goes through cycles of mechanical and spiritual growth. We cleverly create gadgets, and blindly pursue the wealth they potentially create; then, we have spiritual growth dealing with the wreckage that the cleverness created. Spiritual growth seems to lag mechanical growth when the former should be a condition of the latter. But there I go again “shoulding” on society.