Collapse Ideology Artificial? C.I.A.?
What does the abbreviation A.I. really stand for? Yes, artificial intelligence is supposed to turn the world upside down.
Revolution, turning point, giant leap for mankind — the headlines are currently outbidding each other. AI makes life easier. AI turns people into millionaires overnight.
Dear algorithms, thank you for your attention — unsolicited, precise, and faintly unsettling. Hardly do I search for, no, merely *think* of a word, and headlines featuring that exact phrase are conjured onto my screen. Lately it’s been the abbreviation AI and the salvation-merchants that come with it: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot.
Well then, how this fresh idea of artificial intelligence will reshape our lives.
Fresh?
No. In the summer of 1958, a certain John McCarthy organised the founding conference for artificial intelligence at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. That’s when AI was introduced as an academic discipline. Three years after I was born, as it happens. Now, I consider myself and my generation anything but fresh. So what took so long for the idea of artificial intelligence to surface into the awareness of the 21st century? Perhaps it was the limited supply of natural intelligence that served as a brake block? No — it’s simply science doing what science always does: checking everything, and again, and then again, testing, rethinking, starting over. As a system. And that takes time.
And today the colossus of AI hangs around in our consciousness and has us hallucinating. “AI does 90% of your work for you.” “AI replaces the entire marketing department!” Headlines like these make seasoned professionals across many industries tremble. The most frightening part: that intelligence itself — our last remaining claim to uniqueness — now appears replaceable.
Well, like most trends, AI is soaked in superlatives. In both directions. “AI is the end of humanity.” “Get filthy rich with AI.” They make us tremble — either with excitement or with fear.
So, first, a word of reassurance: artificial intelligence is limited. And it hallucinates when it runs out of road. Anyone who has spent time conversing with one of these artificial intelligence applications will have marvelled at how quickly and pleasantly the answers appear on the screen of life. And how cheerfully the AI explains, argues, and comments. It is not stingy with compliments about our own, still-natural intelligence — us, the users.
Caution, then. And scepticism — as pepper, not as paranoia.
Scepticism is the pepper and rules are the upbringing of artificial intelligence. Because, as mentioned: its capacities are strikingly limited. AI needs computing power — gigantic quantities of bits and bytes — to produce results. Artificially reasoned, naturally presented.
What do I mean by hallucination? Well, when AI hits its limits and can’t get hold of reliable or seemingly verifiable data, it keeps going in fantasy mode.
The AI doesn’t switch off — it keeps inventing. Consistently. Convincingly. Wrongly.
No, I’m not condemning the idea of artificial intelligence. It’s useful when natural intelligence loses the overview, fails to recognise solutions, or simply doesn’t have enough arguments for and against at hand. There, AI can offer real services. But you mustn’t leave it to its own devices.
I use AI daily — and I’d rather show than preach. Take breakfast, for instance: with the pleasing title “The World Today.” My AI app searches through my curated list of reliable news sources, which includes a few media outlets but consists mainly of independent freelance journalists — real ones. They come from Canada, the US, and Europe.
Identical topics the AI summarises for me and shows me the differing perspectives or shared ground across those sources. Instead of an opinion echo chamber, I get friction — and friction is more instructive than consensus. As a small treat, I’ve built in a warning signal: the universal human rights serve as a filter when scanning the news, and I see a notification whenever a story violates one or more of those rights.
But what I will never hand over to AI: the lulling, the drowsing, or the trumping of my own intelligence. AI is a tool. Not a replacement. I write. I think. I act.
I want no collapse ideology in my life.
Artificial intelligence takes no responsibility.
That stays with me — warm, fallible, and mostly awake.