For years, Americans have been told that the artificial intelligence revolution would transform the workplace. AI would write reports, analyze spreadsheets, generate computer code, automate customer service and potentially eliminate millions of jobs.
All of that may still happen. But something quieter–and potentially far more consequential–is already taking place.
AI isn’t merely entering our workplaces. It is entering our private lives.
New research from the AI Observatory examined more than 23,000 anonymized conversations with major AI chatbots and found that nearly half–48 percent–were not related to work. People were talking to artificial intelligence about health, relationships and other deeply personal subjects.
That should get our attention.
The biggest AI revolution may ultimately have less to do with whether a machine replaces your accountant and more to do with whether it replaces your counselor, confidant, pastor–or eventually, your conscience.
From Tool To Adviser
There is an enormous difference between asking artificial intelligence, “Can you summarize this report?” and asking it, “Should I divorce my husband?”
One is assistance. The other is counsel.
Yet the transition between the two can happen almost imperceptibly.
Someone begins using AI to compose emails. Then he asks for career advice. Soon he is discussing an argument with his wife, worries about his children, questions about his health, or doubts about his faith.
The attraction isn’t difficult to understand.
AI is available at 2 a.m. It doesn’t appear impatient. It doesn’t become offended. It can respond sympathetically and immediately, and there is none of the embarrassment that might accompany admitting something painful to another human being.
But convenience can slowly become dependence.
The progression could look something like this:
AI as tool -> AI as adviser -> AI as confidant -> AI as counselor -> AI as authority.
And that final step should especially concern Christians.
We Are Creating A “Thought History”
There is another dimension to this transformation that deserves much more attention: privacy.
For years, people have worried about their search histories. Google searches can reveal interests, medical concerns, political questions and purchasing intentions.
Social media reveals something different: what we want other people to see about us.
But conversations with AI can potentially reveal something much deeper–how we actually think.
Imagine several years of conversations with a highly personalized AI assistant.
It could potentially know about your marriage problems, financial fears, medical worries, political opinions, religious doubts, sexual temptations, family conflicts, ambitions and insecurities.
It might know what makes you angry.
It might know what frightens you.
It might even know which arguments are most likely to persuade you.
We are moving from the age of the search history toward the age of the thought history.
That could become one of the richest collections of personal information ever created.
The danger is not necessarily that someone is sitting somewhere reading everyone’s conversations. The larger concern is that society is rapidly normalizing the creation of extraordinarily detailed digital portraits of human beings without fully considering what such information could eventually mean.
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The Ultimate Persuasion Machine?
That leads to an even more unsettling possibility.
Traditional advertising attempts to categorize people. You are male or female, young or old, conservative or liberal, wealthy or struggling. Advertisers then determine which messages might appeal to someone like you.
