How are you using AI in your personal or professional life?
NEWS | 27 February 2026
In 1971, my PhD dissertation was very early AI. Nobody including me really knew what it was. The underlying algorithms were very similar to facial recognition except I was looking at the structure of written text. Alfred North Whitehead said that "Advances of the mind are not made through operations of the mind, but by removing operations from the mind." George Miller said something similar in "The Magic Number Five Plus or Minus Two." I think AI is best thought of as a tool of the mind just as a train is a tool of transportation. Like any new technology it is not well understood widely and is amoral at its core. I use it as a tool; not a substitute. I use it to gather a wide amount of information on a topic, but am aware that there is often a considerable lag between when information becomes available and when AI tools incorporate it. In general, I find this very useful. I sometimes check several different AI sources to confirm what I am reading. I cross check against other sources as well. I use it with caution to learn about medical facts. This helps me when I discuss issues with my physicians. My former colleague, Louis Goldberg, noted that models of radiologist did better at diagnosis than the radiologists did, but radiologists using those tools did better than the model. It is human judgment using AI as a tool that improves decisions just as a train improves transportation. I also use it as source for recipes for both food and cocktails. I have found this to be very effective and have adopted a number of those recipes. For example, I learned with ChatGPT that a good way to cook a hot dog was to wrap it in a wet paper towel and then microwave it for 50 seconds. It comes out beautifully and is really fast. I am not a very good artist, but I have ideas for funny images. I describe what I want to see and get an image that while not as good as it would be if someone with talent had made it, it adequate for my use as a joke. I could never make these images without it. I just don't have the ability to do it. This technology is still new just as trains were in the 1800's when some were convinced that humans could not survive the speed they made possible. Tell that to a pilot of a supersonic aircraft and a belly laugh will erupt. Widespread use of AI is still in its infancy. It will take time to sort things out. How we use it will determine whether it is moral or immoral. But what it is not is a substitute for human judgment. Our minds don't work like computers.
Author: Eric Sullivan.
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