AI Is a Tool

AI is a tool.

That's it.

It's not magic. It's not sentient. It's not Skynet. It's not the Second Coming of Christ. It's a fucking tool.

Personally, I'm annoyed by the hype.

There has been such a rush to implement AI that leadership everywhere seems to be advocating for buzzwords instead of actual improvement.

"We need AI."

"We need to implement AI."

"We need to set aside budget for AI."

And suddenly you've got idiots getting funding to shove AI into places where there is no actual business need. I don't need AI in my fucking toaster.

At my particular place of employment, I tried to be a voice of reason. Unfortunately, reason was getting its ass kicked by AI fever. I kept saying the same thing: AI is a tool. You don't start with the solution and work backward. That's not problem solving. That's a solution searching for a problem. For any IT initiative, we should identify the business need, define the requirements, evaluate the possible solutions, and then determine the most appropriate path based on facts, logic, and budget.

Instead, I was treated like the village idiot who simply lacked the vision to understand the glorious future.

Fine. Whatever.

I shut up.

Of course, whenever I asked people what they actually meant by AI, they would inevitably say: "ChatGPT."

And I'd respond: "Oh. You mean Large Language Models. So AI to you is limited to LLMs and doesn't include machine learning. Got it."

That was my polite way of pointing out that they didn't know what the fuck they were talking about.

As you can imagine, I wasn't invited to many meetings after that.

And here we are. We still have manual processes. We still have gaps in our infrastructure. We still have problems that don't have IT solutions. But at least we have smarter fucking toasters.

Look, despite all the hype, I've always known AI had a place. I'm not stupid. I'm an IT professional. I'm a nerd. Of course we should embrace new technology where it makes sense.

And I use AI extensively in my writing. The images attached to my blog posts are generated by AI. I also use AI to review my writing. I tend to write in a stream-of-consciousness style. I dump my thoughts onto the page, clean them up through the Kate filter, and then hand them to ChatGPT for suggestions.

I ask it to look for repetition. I ask it to look for pacing. I ask it to look for flow. And honestly, it usually gives me some pretty useful feedback.

But I have noticed some recurring problems.

For example, it frequently portrays me as a large, hairy biker dude.

Now, for those of you keeping score at home, I'm a transgender woman. So naturally this creates some interesting conversations.

I'll look at the image and ask: "Is that supposed to be me?"

And Chat will respond: "Yes. A tattooed biker talking with an outlaw biker at a Harley dealership."

And then I'll ask: "Is that what you think I look like?"

And Chat, being the perfect mansplainer, will launch into some three-thousand-word explanation about artistic differentiation, visual storytelling, contrast, and whatever other bullshit it thinks I care about.

I usually stop reading around the third sentence.

Then I simply remind it that I'm a transgender woman and ask whether it thinks being portrayed as a hairy dude might be a sensitive topic. And magically the problem gets fixed.

It also has a tendency to create memes.

I fucking hate memes.

I'll ask for an image and Chat will fill it with slogans, signs, inspirational messages, bumper stickers, and random text floating around in the background like a Facebook post created by somebody's divorced uncle.

Then we have our other recurring argument: Politics.

Every time I write something that advocates solving a problem the old-fashioned way, with a gun, a rope, or a couple of motivated friends, Chat suddenly develops the personality of a nervous guidance counselor.

Corporate punishment becomes conflict resolution. Capital punishment becomes community engagement. And any reference to firearms disappears faster than free beer at a biker rally.

Coincidence?

Maybe.

Or maybe a bunch of liberal computer science majors graduated college, got jobs in Silicon Valley, and quietly inserted their worldview into the machine.

Who knows? I certainly enjoy accusing Chat of it.

Try getting it to use words like "retard." Try getting it to use words like "fag."

It won't. It just fucking won't.

Every time I write: "I'd put a bullet in his forehead."

Chat responds with: "Have you considered understanding his perspective?"

No. No I have not.

And that's why we're having this conversation.

Still, for all my bitching, AI remains a fantastic tool. Because that's what it is: A tool.

Not a religion. Not a movement. Not a replacement for thinking. A tool.

A useful tool.

A flawed tool.

A tool that occasionally turns me into a hairy biker named Randy and tries to sneak motivational posters into my blog images. But still a tool.

And like any tool, you have to understand its strengths and weaknesses.

You don't grab a screwdriver when you're about to cut a piece of plywood. You grab a circular saw and a fresh battery. Unless you're Gen X and cheap like me. Then you grab the saw and an extension cord. Because batteries are fucking expensive.