AI is already killing us.
Tuesday, 7:30 p.m., Napa In-N-Out. I strike up a conversation in line with a guy who asks what I think about the death in Sonoma Plaza. I’m here with my golf team after a triple match with Justin and Napa High at Silverado Country Club, and spirits are high. He shows me what he’s talking about on his phone, four people, the n-word, one punch, man down, life ended, lives ruined, horrible. I walk over to the team who are all on their phones and remind them they are still in school, look around, make new friends, live.
Out better than In, off better than on, present better than absent, engaged better than disengaged, living better than watching. Should I go on? No need, but I wonder where we would be if, in the 1920s, we had the realization that staring at screens wasn’t a great way to spend the next 100 years.
AI might kill us, AI will save us, smartphones are awesome, smartphones are evil, Meta helps me make friends, Meta makes me doom scroll for 13 hours a day.
Last weekend I couldn’t rent a bike on the streets of San Francisco because the iOS system on my iPhone 8 was too old. Now, I’m at the T-Mobile store in Napa and things are not going well. Could be my ADD, could be the manifestation of my “phones are ruining the world” philosophy, could be I’m just old, but most likely it’s a combo of all of these. I have my new iPhone sitting in a pretty little pink bag but Eddie, my super-competent T-Mobile guy, has not been able to transfer information because I never set up my iCloud password on my old Apple account. Apple support can solve this problem in five days, which is like an eternity for most, but a happy tech vacation for me.
Friday afternoon, and I should be celebrating what a wonderful Week Five I’ve just had in the classroom, how my golf team is putting along nicely, and how I’m poised for 48 hours of bliss and relaxation in beautiful Sonoma. But all I can think about is how lame I am for not fitting into this world. I leave school early to head to the Genius Bar at the Apple store in Corte Madera.
Is there a moral or a message? Sure, that we should always ask if technology is helping or hurting, that the job of leaders is to understand and protect us from new technologies that could kill us, that good tech is amazing but if it also leads to addiction, hate and problems, then it’s bad tech.
Education is the perfect example, hundreds of programs created to increase learning. Turn on, tune in, learn more! iPads for all! But are students getting smarter? Test scores since 2013 say otherwise. The declining creative level in my art classes says otherwise. The lack of players on my tennis team says otherwise.
The current state of the world might also be saying otherwise.
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