If we can’t have our cake AND eat it too, let’s blame the machine that made up the menu!

Many years ago, well before our current president ran for office, I started a blog called “Rejecting the Blame Society.“

A spot to share my thoughts about how solving problems is messy and risky and … a target. But finding someone or something to blame for this or that problem, or all of today’s ills … well, that works. And not just in politics, either.

My longtime related line of cognitive dissonance: “I want to have my cake, eat it too, not get fat, have someone else pay the bill – and if I can’t, it’s xxxx’s fault!”

A corollary of sorts is what I thought of one day while sitting one of those endless government meetings, when rural residents would say, in essence: “Would you please pay more attention to us – and leave us the hell ALONE?!”

No one ever said we can’t badly want two things that seem to be diametrically opposed – but they sure aren’t in our brains. We have reasons that others will call excuses.

Now, amid all the turmoil and uproar (do we ever have a downroar?;-) over AI and data centers, etc., I’m starting to read amid my daily flood of related newsletters, Medium articles etc. pieces by folks who don’t necessarily hate AI, but who still fear what it will do to every facet of society.

Actually, to be more precise: They are saying AI is not to blame – and many still praise its wonders. It’s the people using it – misusing it, or not setting up proper safeguards – who are going to doom us all to eternity, etc.

That’s quite understandable: This is not like every other big technological advance we’ve seen. It’s far more powerful, persuasive and fraught with tough issues to address.

But it has gotten me wondering: Is one big reason that AI is such a huge target – perhaps the biggest in my lifetime – because it’s so easy to blame?

Whatever your level of understanding about the technology – and anyone who says they are keeping up with all the models and tools is fooling themselves, kidding us or both – the pace of development is hard not to see as something out of our control.

Hence, the fears, the loud chorus of calls for government to “regulate” or force a slowdown in the whole darn field, put up “guardrails” (for a “vehicle” going 3,000 mph?!) – or even building in a “kill switch,” sort of an unplugging of this whole deal.

It’s hard to blame a machine for things, because as we all know, humans are the ones programming and building… well, hold on, now AI can “easily” build good, bad or ugly software code – just like us humans -, and robotics is advancing pretty well, too, so maybe we then CAN blame machines, and we remain personally guilt-free!

Not really.

I tell people all the time that when my name is atop an article on Barney’s Bend Bugle, I WROTE IT – not my AI “friends.” I use them to build the site, to do research – the usual, very useful things.

In fact, sometimes, especially on complex topics, I’ll do a Perplexity dive – then send a link to what it told me to someone I’ll be interviewing, before we talk. It can save lots of time, and perhaps take the interview in directions I never would have thought of.

I … make that “we” did build in an AI-fueled story generator or rewriter that can untangle twisted news releases, but I’ve barely used it, because I know too many folks hate anything that AI touches. (As if they can always tell!)

Still I dared to put “AI-assisted” in the tagline of my lil’ baby local news website – a small rebuke to those who believe it’s an instrument of the devil that could wipe us all out – if not today, then very soon.

I totally get the fear of the unknown. But we have to at least try to keep emotions out of it, to whatever degree possible, and ask the right questions about the best path forward.