In our work, we’ll increasingly use AI tools for cybersecurity, IT administration, software development and architecture, hardware design and 100 other tasks. Despite the fuzzy language of the tech industry, we’ll succeed best with tomorrow’s tools by understanding, using and exploiting them — not “partnering with AI.”
The second problem is that we might trust AI, relying far too much on next-generation agentic AI to choose its own path to solving our problems and achieving the goals we set for it. Instead, we need to understand the potential hazards, and make sure it does what we want it to do without accidentally enabling it to “steal,” “cheat,” “lie” or harm people on our behalf.
Don’t fear the robot
If the public believes AI has human-like qualities, they’re likely to fear it. AI is not human, and behind its programmatic simulation of human speech and artificial emotional intelligence, it’s just a machine with all the humanity of a toaster. AI will always creep people out if they believe it’s “thinking.” As a result of this fear, a huge percentage of people in the future might well refuse AI-based medical interventions and other beneficial or even life-saving drugs, therapies and emergency care.
