Celebrating Human Intelligence in AI Era

Grandson noticed how light shone through his picture when he put it up in a window.

I am not always that thrilled with AI. I see lots of images crop up on social media showing pictures created by AI, and I find it discouraging.

I don’t want my art created by AI programs that are basically just ripping off large collections of human-art. I don’t want Chat GPT creating my sentences for me. I know that AI is all around, and I’m sure I benefit from it in many ways, but I still worry that we’re in danger of forgetting ourselves. I suppose the algorithms at Meta and Google that are always watching take advantage of AI technology, too. I don’t want to be a Luddite, but I’m not ready to say it’s OK to serve up AI-created gruel rather than humans taking the time to create.

So, I enjoyed several reminders of human intelligence, inefficient and limited as it is, in the past few days.

In one of my classes, we held a spelling bee on Friday. That is a rather quaint and old-fashioned exercise in the era of commonplace spell check and more sophisticated writing aids, but as I told the students, tuning into the actual spelling of the words you use means getting to know those words better.

In five students participating, one young woman stood out and handily won. We chatted after class, and she credited her upbringing. Her mother, a school teacher, had emphasized language skills and reading to her children, and this student had been an early reader.

The winner of the spelling bee.

True, spelling is something you should use computer aids for, in my opinion. But I liked the old exercise, emphasizing that your own understanding of words in your own brain still matters.

That Friday afternoon, my wife and I attended a musical, “The Lion King,” at Kennedy High School. The play was well cast, the teens really got into their parts, and the young kids and older folk in the audience enjoyed the show.

There is something raw and real about live theater, and this was a very pleasant experience. Sunday, I’m planning to attend “The Wizard of Oz” at TCR—another point of contact with the possibilities of human creativity.

Then, on Saturday, Dec. 2, the Cedar Rapids Art Museum had a Family Fun Day. The museum was free to enter that day, and there were various activities for kids. My wife, one of my daughters and I accompanied three grandsons to the day. They enjoyed moving about the galleries, and we created little games for them there, such as “find the painting with a lobster” in one room, or “find the picture of the father and son” in another.

Grandsons watching video as part of display in Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

They created greeting cards, pop-up books and “blind” art drawn with their eyes closed. It was a fun time to enjoy images that reflected the humanity of their creators, not an AI compilation of what a genre of image should look like.

I am unsure about the implications of AI, and I need to learn more. I hope that it evolves into tools that we can control to enhance our lives and not the robot overlords who will end us.

In the meantime, I’ll enjoy some human efforts. A young woman who can sure spell. Teens who can become animals on stage. Grandsons scurrying about an art gallery, enjoying the images there.

At the dawn of the AI era, I take some comfort in simple, human skills and creativity.