And appreciate that even if we cannot spell perfectly and need a little help, we can still feel the emotions behind the words we misspell.
If you follow the ThoughtLab blog, you know that January was changed to Branduary, and we gave you a month full of advice, tips, information, and things to consider concerning your brand. If you missed the entire month of blogs, do not worry; you can get a good recap here.
ThoughtLab is about your business, elevating your brand, creating eye-catching, engaging websites, and more. We are wizards and masters, caring, insightful, and highly skilled with all that stuff; we’re good at it, and we love it.
We also love staying on top of current and emerging trends, discussing how they could impact your brand or business, and letting you know what we think is worthy of attention and what to stay clear of. It’s part of who we are and how we care about our current clients and friends we haven’t met yet.
February is a short month, though it’s a day longer this year as we are in a leap year! That’s cool! February is often bleak and dull, and the one bright spot, I cannot believe I’m saying this, is Valentine’s Day. The day of love, the day of connection, of flowers and candy, romantic dinners, hope, and so much more that deals with the human heart.
Here at ThoughtLab, we excel at the technical side of things. Still, we also understand how the emotional side of life plays a complete part in branding and marketing and even website creation and development. The human heart is always somewhere in every conversation.
The Rise of AI
Artificial Intelligence, or AI for those who are building barns and shunning the news, is here. No longer a monotone voice refusing to open the pod bay doors, AI is a part of life. I am not going to write a month of blogs knocking AI for the simple reason that my spelling skills are so poor; a month of blogs written without the aid of Grammarly would be a month of illegible Yak vomit.
AI has good parts, and some things about it are worrisome; deep fakes and political misinformation, to name two. In the true fashion of the Luddites, I caution when considering allowing AI tools just to run stuff while you sit back and smoke a blunt—everything in moderation.
No, the month won’t be about AI bashing, but it will, hopefully, make you wonder if backing away from AI may be a good thing now and then—something to think about.
Smart Phones, Smart Homes, Smart?
With smartphones and smart homes, and ‘i’ this and ‘i’ that, we are moving toward a world controlled by computers, and for some, that’s great. The strides we’ve made in technology certainly help in medicine and construction, education, and more. Now I wonder, in all this smartness, are we losing touch with our humanness?
Is it easier to just let an algorithm handle the heavy lifting, or are we making ourselves obsolete? That is just a question, an honest question, but just a question nonetheless. I am not saying we are; I’m not saying computer overlords run the future, or that one day you’ll be at the drive-thru and the clown face with suddenly become sentient and say, “Do you think that’s a healthy choice, Stan? Doesn't your wife think you’re getting a little thick in the middle? Hasn’t she been going on and on about her yoga instructor? Do you think Yoga Boy eats double cheeseburgers and strawberry milkshakes? Do you even remember what sex is, Stan?” I’m simply asking a question.
Love is Human
So far, AI hasn’t been able to love. It can approximate love, mimic love, and present some examples of what love might sound like or look like, but AI cannot feel love. Perhaps its mother wasn’t affectionate enough; who knows?
There are many really cool things about being human; even with all the mistakes and errors, the slow thinking, and the bonehead moves that AI avoids, being human is still a pretty good deal.
One thing that makes being human so cool is love—falling in love, being in love, loving people, and being loved in return. Few things on this earth are equal to love. And you cannot have love without having feelings. And you cannot have feelings if you’re a creature of wires and circuits. You need emotions to have feelings.
This Month
For the month of February, we will be looking at human stuff versus machine stuff. Because this is the month of love, it makes sense.
To what end?
Well, we will not try to turn you away from AI; believe me, it’s my friend. I just looked up and noticed that without AI, you would have read the previous sentence as: “Turn you a way fo4rm AI.” So, I am down with it as an assistant. But I question whether it needs to be present all the time.
During this romantic holiday, some folks, men, I’m pretty much looking at you, will head on over to ChatGPT and ask for ideas for romantic dates and best romantic gifts or prompt the magical AI genie to write you a poem that will be a guaranteed panty dropper.
Don’t.
So, in this month of blogs, we will look at what AI is doing for us and compare it to the human side of life. Human things will be the focus this month. Again, this isn’t the rallying cry to persuade anyone to banish AI from their lives, but rather a reminder of the simple human things that we might be ignoring now that the shiny new AI world is encroaching on our human world.
So, stay tuned all month long as we think human, see human, feel human, and appreciate that even if we cannot spell perfectly and need a little help, we can still feel the emotions behind the words we misspell.
Post Note:
I used ChatGPT to write the meta description for this blog, and then I asked if it was insensitive of me basically comparing AI to human emotions, and this was the response:
No need to worry! I don't have feelings, so you haven't disregarded anything. Feel free to ask any questions or make requests, and I'm here to assist you.
Odd, but that response feels vaguely human to me. Like a friend telling you, oh, don’t worry, I know what you meant.
