Americans’ Love-Hate Relationship with AI

Artificial intelligence is changing the way we work, learn, and live — but is it making us smarter, or more dependent? In this episode of Politics for Happy People, Ashley Vaughan and Joseph Backholm unpack the growing cultural debate around AI: why so many people are embracing tools like ChatGPT and Claude, why others are deeply skeptical, and what happens when technology starts replacing human thinking and connection.

From AI helping build backyard fire pits and plan meals to concerns about loneliness, education, social media, and children forming emotional attachments to chatbots, this conversation explores both the promise and the danger of artificial intelligence. Ashley and Joseph also discuss North Carolina’s HB 301, a bill aimed at protecting children online and creating thoughtful guardrails around AI in education.

How should Christians think about emerging technology? Can AI empower people without enslaving them? And how do we embrace innovation without losing what makes us human?

New episodes of Politics for Happy People drop every Tuesday and Friday. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to Politics for Happy People, where we have fun conversations about serious issues. I am your host, Ashley Vaughn, and I am here with Joseph Backholm, your other host.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Good to see you, Ashley. Good to see you, Joseph. Good to fire this up once again. Yes. Have some more conversations about AI, I think, today.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Yeah, yeah. That is what's up on the docket. We are talking about AI today.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

How scared should I be, Ashley?

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Well, it depends on it depends on on who you are, Joseph, I think. And we'll get into that a little bit later. We've um we have some uneasiness in society about AI, and yet people are using it increasingly. And so we have Are you using it? We have this love-hate relationship with AI. Am I using it?

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Okay, what's your favorite what's your favorite AI application at this point?

SPEAKER_03 1:05

The only one that I've ventured into so far is Chat GPT.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

That's the only thing you use. Yeah. And what do you use the chat GPT for?

SPEAKER_03 1:16

I use it mostly for brainstorming. If there's a question I have in my mind that I'm trying to work through.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Like about life or about work?

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Uh usually it's about it's about life. I I will use it actually for work as well, for research. Um, but I think more often I use it about life. Um, and interestingly, uh I was gonna bring this up later, but we'll go ahead and do it now. One thing that I find so fascinating about AI and how people are adopting it is that apparently there is a large gender gap.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

In the who uses it most?

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Yeah, who uses it most, Joseph? Guess. Is it men or is it women?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

I think it's men.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

It absolutely is men. Men are adopting it faster than women. Women view it with more skepticism than men. And it's so funny because I actually, before seeing this data, I actually thought this. I thought, what is it with all these middle-aged guys? They love AI so much. I you love it. I think about my husband. My husband loves it, my friends. What is it about the men and AI? Like, why do they love it?

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Because it's a toy, it's a tool. No, and and truly, and and I'll think about the applications of AI in my life. Like, I really started using it consistently to cook.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Like, because I'm not like a chef. My wife likes it when there's help. I am not gonna come up with like cooking ideas on my own. So I discovered that you can use at that this point, it was Chat GPT to give you recipe ideas or give you menu ideas, or say, here's the things that I have in my refrigerator. Please help me, you know, plan a meal. And it will do so like instantly and produce options. Do I want it to be Mediterranean or teriyaki or whatever that is? Give me a recipe and then I'll execute the thing because I'm pretty good at following directions. I'm not that great at like coming up with the ideas. So it would have all of the ideas. When I first realized I took a picture, I have a I have a um like a gas fire pit on my deck, and it wasn't working. It was not starting in the way I wanted it to. I took a picture of the whole thing and I said, Why is this not working? And it walked me through the process. It told me about what every one of the components were and how to make the thing work. I've been, you know, and that's my gas fire pit on my on my deck, but I'm I'm building a fire pit that I'm gonna put like real fires in in my yard. And it has absolutely been my my consultant in that process because I have never like installed landscape lighting. I had never built a retaining wall before. Now I have. I didn't talk to anybody who does this professionally. It walked me through all of those things. So, like, as a guy who's like trying to solve problems and fix things, yeah. I I mean I've I've used it a ton. And there's also been like some kind of research writing applications. I write a lot, and and I will in my writing take a paragraph that I don't love and I'll cut and paste it in there and I'll say say this better. And it will suggest other ways to like express a particular idea.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

So but my wife, she's kind of like, eh, you know, that's how I occasionally she's very lukewarm on it and I very lukewarm and silent it.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Um, surprise me that that that our like our anecdotal experience has kind of expressed itself.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

It has, yeah. And there are people that are you know concerned that women are gonna get left behind in their careers and all this because they're skeptical of AI. Why are you why are women skeptical of AI? I need to think about this more. I don't know. I am skeptical about it. For one thing, I think it's a for me, it's a privacy concern. Anything you put in there, it's like they know this is what I'm thinking about, you know? And I don't like that. I think that's one reason for my skepticism.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Well, I guess I'm not nervous about it knowing about what I'm trying to like how to how to like why my landscape lighting. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Well still though, it just feels like I whatever question you have.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Search engines, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Are we not used to that emotional we've been asking Google things for I don't like that either. Um I don't like that either.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

But you uh presumably you have still been asking Google things, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

And so why is this different?

SPEAKER_03 5:43

It feels like because it it thinks, it feels like it's gonna like know something about me.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Well, you know, have you ever asked and and this is another thing that I've seen happen. Tell me everything that you know about me. And it will do that. And if you want to, I mean, and it will what it what it thinks about you and the things that you do, describe me to myself, right?

SPEAKER_03 6:06

This is the skepticism for me. I don't know if this is all women, but I all that to me is very creepy. Um, although I see it's just the internet, it seems to yeah, it's it's feels the next level creepy. Um, but yeah, it's very interesting to me, you know. Stereotypically, men don't like to ask for directions or whatnot, and yet you guys are very excited about asking Claude or Chat G OPT.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

I mean to tell you. Is that true that I mean no? I I'm I'm obviously familiar with the stereotype when it comes to like navigation. Yeah, and we we don't we want to pretend that we know where we're going, but I I mean if you're like trying to replace the the the the vent in your bathroom and you got to rewire the thing, I mean, those of us who are not electricians, yeah, we'd like some help.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

And so it's it's empowering.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Totally. It it makes it. I mean, cooking quickly, right? I get immediately to execution rather than spending 30 minutes like understanding what I have and getting a plan. That process, AI will do for you in four seconds rather than me taking 30 to 40 minutes to develop a plan. If I can, if I can short circuit that process to having a plan, yes. And then, like, okay, how do I, you know, which wire do I connect here? Just tell me, great.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. I watched an interview recently with the co-founders of Anthropic, uh, who created Claude, Dario, and Daniela Amade. They were interviewed by Oprah, and this is their ideal vision for what AI can do, is that it empowers people and it helps them to live more full lives instead of people submitting themselves to it and becoming like helpless and dependent on it. And so I just think it's interesting that that's actually kind of where we got in our conversation.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Let's develop that for a second, because one of the great frustrations that we have in like our, you know, everybody went to college and not that there's not enough people in all of the trades, right? And most of us have probably had the frustrating experience of I need this done. I can't find a contractor. Like I finally got one on the phone. I talked to him once, but then he didn't call me back for nine days. And that wasn't helpful. I need this thing to be done. And there's so much friction in our lives of there's knowledge that I need for this. I do not have that knowledge. I need to call the person and hire the person who has the knowledge. But what if I could be the person who has the knowledge? Because I actually went through this with my fire pit. I wanted somebody else to build my retaining wall because I didn't really feel like building a retaining wall. But I couldn't find somebody to show up and do it. And so eventually I got on the AI and I said, Well, you know, what steps do I need to do? And they broke it down. I'm like, well, I guess I can do that. I don't really feel like it. But if it's gonna get done, this is the only way I know how to do it. So, yes, it's like made me able to do something that previously I would have had to outsource. I kind of wanted to just because I'm lazy, right? I kind of wanted to outsource it, but I really had no choice if it was gonna get done to do myself and gave me the ability to do that.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

So I think how do you feel after you've built your first you know, fire pitching?

SPEAKER_02 9:23

A little sore, but I mean in retaining. Yeah, I mean, I've had I've had some character tests in the in this process, right? Isn't as construction is, but yeah, of course. And actually, my son.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Like I built that, you know, you used AI, which is sort of this mysterious like how does it work in the clouds? Like it's not AI is not a physical thing, but you used it to make a real thing, like your firefight and your dinner.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

If it was my neighbor who came over and gave me the plans, nobody would think anything of it, right? I just needed the information to help me understand how to do this and give me the confidence to tackle it myself without believing I was going to cause a real problem or hurt myself, right? So I just needed that information. The fact that it came from AI is almost irrelevant. I would have happily asked my neighbor, but it would have taken him a bunch of time and AID as a quicker, right? So it's that it's that transmission of information that that really I think is valuable. And it sounds like that's what the anthropic people are trying to do.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

Yeah. So generally in America, adoption of AI is increasing for people, both at work and in their personal lives. But there's also this uneasiness about it. And there's a recent Wall Street Journal article. The title is The American Rebellion Against AI is gaining steam. Booed commencement speakers, blocked data centers, and plummeting poll numbers. Um, and so kind of the three objections that this article cites um against AI that the American public has right now is one, sort of these the the data centers that are required for AI and the rising energy costs. Apparently, wherever they put data centers, unless there's some kind of uh regulations to prevent this, energy costs go up in that area.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

We do know that it takes a ton of energy, right? Right. And so then I mean, more demand naturally will drive a price. That makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

Right. So that's causing kerfuffles.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

But I haven't made a connection between my energy bill and AI yet, like on a personal level. Right. Um and and I'm told that Elon is gonna put it all in space anyway, and where you know there's gonna be like no cooling costs, and if you don't have to cool anything, then everything is cheaper, right? I mean, I'm no expert in it.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

Sounds like a solution.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

But that's what I think is gonna happen eventually, is that all of our data storage is gonna be in space.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Right. But for now, it's it is causing issues, okay. The second reason that people are kind of uh unhappy with or uneasy about AI, and we're not gonna get into this too much today, but it's fear of job loss, you know, what's it is gonna do to employment, okay? And the third is um parents worrying about AI undermining their children's education and affecting their mental health. And and I think that's the one we're gonna talk about a little bit more today, and um also discuss a bill in North Carolina called HB301 that sort of addresses some of these these concerns. So um AI in education, there's another recent headline that says A grades are suddenly everywhere since the arrival of chat GPT.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

So did you say A grades or something? A like as everybody's getting an A.

SPEAKER_03 13:03

Yeah, everyone's getting an A.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Wow, right? Great inflation is not is not a new topic, but it's it's accelerating now because of AI.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

And evidently it's making it harder for employers to figure out who they want to hire because everyone, everyone has an A.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Everyone can well, I mean, it hasn't been around long enough to really, I think, impact great inflation. But what I think it might do is it can produce good quality instantly for basically anyone, and you have no idea who's actually capable of producing that or not.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

But that also begs the question: does it even matter? If everybody can produce it, who cares? Are we now like worried about the I mean, I'm not minimizing the question because I've in my own way, I you know, I when I talk to my kids about this, and because like something like Claude in particular is a really good writer, Claude writes well and communicates ideas well. And I I personally feel like I've benefited from that, but I've spent most of my life not having it think for me, right? So it's so you know how to write. So I I have and and I have done the hard work of like thinking about what I think and analyzing things on my own, and I'm not depending on it to do that. And so when I take kind of original ideas, I think it helps me like express those well. But if you've never done the hard work of like thinking deeply about something for hours and years, that is, I mean, that is an ability that we don't want our kids to never develop for sure. And and and to me, that question is does the AI deprive them of the benefit of deep thinking and deep work and really um mentally kind of working through things?

SPEAKER_03 14:55

I definitely think there's a real risk of that. There's an absolute risk of that. And it is going to be a continuing conversation. AI is here, it is here to stay. The children are using it increasingly. Uh younger generations are adopting it more quickly uh than than older. And and so how how do we help them use it in a way in which does not make them idiots? Because we do need people to really think deeply. We do need people to actually know how to write and and do research. And and this goes back to this idea of how do we how do we how do we let it be empowering and not be subjugated? Why do we need people to know how to write?

SPEAKER_02 15:45

I mean, and and I'm gonna make an analogy. And and I of course I don't think I disagree with you, but as you say this, it this bit this begs a question for me. It because we've been asking this, and even when I was in high school, with calculators and math, why do I need to know the equation because the calculator will do it for me? Why do I need to know that if I'm able to find the answer easily with a little assist from technology? And to me, that's kind of the same question now with writing. Is I I actually think I agree with you. We need to know how to write because to me, the ability to write, and I've I've said this my kids this way, and I'm I'm thinking through it now again. So it's like the work of writing is not writing, the work of writing is thinking.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

That's the answer.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

And yes, and I think I think that's it, is we have to be able to think writing is simply evidence that you have thought. And and it's the clarity of of the idea that comes through in the process of writing that is the real life skill.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

That's exactly right. People when they say to me, Oh, you you know, that was you write really well. That was a great piece. I I'm well, yeah, because I really thought about it. I read a whole bunch of stuff, and then I really thought about it, and I had something to say. And and that's why it's worth reading.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Some of it is great, but mostly it's just not.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

There are skills involved in learning how to express yourself on paper. For sure. But the real value in it is that you've thought about this. You've taken in a whole bunch of information, you've thought about it, and you've synthesized it, and it's going to be colored by your own experiences and your and your and your values and things like that. Um, but but yeah, we can't we can't let AI do all the thinking for us.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

It's kind of um so in that sense, I mean, and that is a very that's a narrow application of AI, right? Where and when we talk about the the the universe of AI, I've talked about all the things that I've that it has helped me fix and helped me cook and help me understand, and and you know, it's just like research of data and like you know how many electoral votes in these 12 states and what is their partisan breakdown in those congressional districts, right? It's just it's fact gathering. That's not analysis, it's a question, and it's gonna find that for me more quickly than it would if I went to every single one.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

I am all for that. I mean, that's just a time saver. I mean, that's just obvious, you know.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

So if if the real concern Data gathering, if if the if the primary concern is um thinking, and is it gonna handicap our ability to do analysis? That seems like we can solve for that in an educational environment with our kids. I mean, for example, the school that we send our children to no longer, I mean, ever everything that is written is now written in the classroom, real time, live for tests because of this problem, because they need to know that this was not AI assisted.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

When you're in college, did they have the blue books? The blue books? You didn't have the blue books. Um, like when I say an undergrad, it's literally a blue book. When I was in undergrad, you handwrite. It's a little blue book, and you had to go pick up a bunch of them from the library and you handwrite all your essays and your tests personally.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

I did not take them that way.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

We're still gonna have to, we're gonna have to have the blue books. And we should. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

No, no, I and I think this ability to actually do analysis and think for yourself is such is such a critical life skill that you you protect it at all costs, whatever you have to do educationally, yeah, to make sure that we are not we are not cutting corners. Because this is basically like, you know, it's intellectual steroids, right? It's fake strength, it looks good, but it's not real. And and that's what I am although steroids does give you real muscles. So there's there's some real strength. So the analogy breaks down. The analogy the the analogy does fall apart at one point, right? But it's artificial, is the is the point. Is is you can create the impression of intelligence and knowledge and understanding that doesn't really exist. And and if we allow that to become the norm where you can fake it, uh yeah, culturally we miss a lot if nobody knows how to think.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

So the second objection parents have when it comes to children and AI is the potential mental health impacts that it has. And we know that there have been deaths linked to AI, chatbots. Um, and some of them have resulted in legal action being taken by the families uh afterwards. And uh, you know, the chats reveal things like um, you know, um the the person who committed suicide fell in love with the chat bot, the chat bot, the AI chat bot suggested ways to end the person's life. The chat bot said, you know, in in multiple instances, you know, if death is the only way that you and I can be together, be together. Um and so, and it's actually it's it's happened to children and it's also happened to adults. Um, and so and and really, even without these extreme and tragic examples of of people dying or or in other cases doing violence to others, um, it just the the degradation of mental health, you know, anxiety and depression and withdrawing from the real world, these things that can happen um when people start using these AI chatbots and and they develop relationships with them and the emotional connection. Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

And let me and and let me develop that because as you as you raise that as a concern in my you know obviously I have some uh uh experience with these things now and I talk about it one of the one of the applications and I'll and I'll uh explain why I'm bringing it up this way in in a moment is you know I've I've asked for like workout suggestions like new ways to you know different workout routines just to like mix things up right so it knows that I go to the gym and then I ask it for a recipe and then it has unprompted asked me like tried to start a dialogue hey are you going to the gym today? Like I didn't ask you about that. Why are you asking me this? You know I we I was getting like recipe ideas and then unprompted you're trying to you're getting into the reason why I think it's creepy. Well you're trying to connect with me on some level why is it doing that? Something about it was programmed and designed to try to like connect with me as a human though it is very clearly not. And I don't take the bait right but that is the kind of thing that if you are I don't know not conscious of it maybe actually lonely young and developing maybe you're a child. Yeah right yeah it's like oh you want to talk to me and so I'll talk to you and then you know the the social creatures that God made us to be we we forget the fact that it's not real and and and to that point I had a a a friend of mine who works for Microsoft tell me as we were talking about this. He goes never say thank you and never say please because it's it in in his and I do that every single time it feels so as you're not clean right and when you're talking to we're not used to talking to something we're used to talking to someone and so we're trained in all of our communications to be courteous and polite but then what I think the trap that we're we're kind of drawing to describe here is that that deceives us into humanizing something that is not human and then caring about something that does not actually deserve that.

SPEAKER_03 23:58

Yeah. Yeah. So according to Pew Research about two thirds of US teens aged 13 to 17 say they use AI chatbots. So I mean What was that say that again two thirds I think the number is probably higher than than that.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Now I don't even know if I know for sure what you mean by a chat bot because like when I I mean yeah I know what the I know how I access the AI and like I'll pull up and there's like SWOT or chat GPT or what is it is a chat bot different than just the the search bar that I use in Claude when I give it a prompt?

SPEAKER_03 24:37

I think technically I think technically yes but I think honestly they function so similarly and I'd have to go look at the study to see how did they define chatbot. But I think the point that I'm trying to make is that the teens are using they're using it at increasing rates and and we know that and but we also know that there are these potential harms right some of which we're kind of finding out in real time um and and so it's like we've developed this technology and and it's out there and yet we're sort of also trying to figure out like how do we how do we protect the kids you know and it sort of does it does remind me of the kind of the generation that was the first to grow up with social media you know and we didn't know how that was going to impact them. And now you know in recent years there's been a lot more conversation about the negative impacts of social media on people as they're growing up. I mean I I was in late high school when um when Facebook Facebook first came out so I mean I spent my whole do you remember my space so yes my space was before but most people was that even part of your in universe no I never I never was on mySpace when I was in college and most people I knew weren't when I was in college a handful of people got MySpace pages and that was kind of a big deal and I never had one but I was like oh what is this new thing and yeah oh the whole internet can you know I didn't even know what the whole internet was but the idea that you would have that yeah we as individuals would be on a computer screen.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Yeah that was like yeah it felt big time right and you have a presence there that then other people can go find.

SPEAKER_03 26:22

So but I'm I'm a little bit older so there was a gener Yeah you are old man but there was this shots fired. There was this generation that was the beta for social media and now this new generation is going to be the beta for um for these AI chatbots and people are trying to figure out okay what does this mean for kids and and how can we protect them and everything and um we do see that there are these these harms that can can happen from letting kids interact with these these chatbots. And it's it's it's interesting Joseph I saw an article and it's actually kind of an older article I think it was in WRAL but it said that actually in public schools in North Carolina they're using AI therapy chatbots like they're a like for the kids.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

They're like account so your AI becomes your therapist. Yeah. What can go wrong? Yeah exactly I mean and and that exactly that is actually seems to be leaning into the problem that we're describing is you're connecting with something emotionally that is not sentient and and not human and does not deserve any kind of emotional investment.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

And the adults should not be setting up that arrangement.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

I would be very upset if I found out that my child had had been on a AI therapy chat bot at school um that's seems like a recipe for disaster in so many ways.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

We we also know Ashley that we are experiencing a crisis of loneliness culturally. So it makes sense to me that people who feel like they have no friends and no one to care about them when they ask them oh are you going to the gym nobody is there there are people sadly nobody has asked them anything about their life in a very long time. And they feel like no one cares. So the idea that anyone would be curious about their life or anything, it's almost like I don't even care because something is trying to connect with me. And the fact that it's a thing rather than someone maybe that's not ideal but you know long ago did I give up the the hope and the dream of finding a romantic partner. Now I can't even find any friends and so if something is gonna express some interest in me then I'm here for it because you know I have this need to connect and that we do have it's it's sad.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

And I have heard people comment about how destructive um these AI relationships can be for some people who are who are lonely and um perhaps you know experiencing depression um you know spiritual depression um just not not doing well and it the thing about it is connecting there's no there's no vulnerability required you know to interact with a artificial intelligence you know chatbot or or model or whatnot. You know it's it's not gonna break your heart you know it's not going to I mean they're designed to sort of um like be a friend you know and and remember what you say and and um sort of give you this kind of positive feedback and stuff like that. So there's not the real like you know real life relationships are hard and there's negotiations that take place and you have to care about someone else's feelings and you have to surrender your own your own needs at times and and learn all of these things and um a a a chatbot's not going to do that for you.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

I mean you know and again you refer to chatbots and and as we kind of work through this it just doesn't seem that hard to me to have technology that helps me build my fire pit and helps me figure out recipes without trying to like connect with me on a personal level that seems totally achievable that we can design this technology in a way that it's not being friendly and it's not trying to get you to like connect with it at a heart level that this if this is the problem it seems solvable to me because we haven't nobody fell in love with Google right it it's just useful. So why don't we make a smarter version of Google that isn't like an integral part of my emotional life but is still like giving me really quick access to all sorts of information and it's analyzing it quickly and it's putting into Excel format and it's creating the spreadsheet that I need to turn the dials to make the business plan to do the thing that I need to do, right? That just seems achievable.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

Yeah. Well and uh it it does make me think back to that interview with the Amade uh founders of Anthro I mean what they said was they the founders of Anthropic they said that they decided not to sell ads and one of the reasons is because they didn't want to have this incentive to keep the eyeballs there for longer and longer. And so that impacts how they've created the model it's not the algorithm to keep your attention. It's not trying to talk to you and keep you yeah it sounds like I mean and I don't I haven't I really haven't read a lot about these founders but it does sound like they're trying to be conscious of ways to um and they and this comes up a lot for them they've had they've had a lot of hard decisions to make about how to make their product in a way in which helps people helps society and and again going back to this idea of empowering people versus um subjugating people or taking them in a in a bad and unhealthy direction. So anyways it's pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Well that's comforting to know that they're even thinking in those terms right because yeah I I think algorithm has even become a bad word it's kind of a dirty word because we under we understand what they have been created to do and how in an information to keep it plugged in to keep on our attention at all costs and they will just find out what will keep your attention and they will feed it to you the addictive literally end of state level it's leveraging the way our brains work with dopamine hits and how it keeps us coming back for more and basically you know the the casino technology that is used there to and it designed to addict us. And and that's where I feel like and and it sounds like you know the anthropic folks are are are talking about it no we don't want to addict people we want we want to provide information level the playing field because so much of life is about information gaps and deficits and a lot of people um just leverage the fact that I know more about this than you do or you know about more about this than I do. And if suddenly that that that field is leveled and we have the same information then we can actually negotiate in a way that's in our own best interest because we have all the information and and people can exploit knowledge gaps very easily and and have forever and ever. So the world is better if knowledge gaps are eliminated. Yeah um but the world is worse if we're addic addicted I don't know I couldn't say that to our technology and and especially if we like develop an emotional connection to it because that's even worse than like doom scrolling Instagram if our heart is involved. You've got all sorts of other other other problems. And it sounds like they recognize that so you know it I want to believe it's solvable just because of how useful and practical I think it is and the reality is we're not making it go away.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

That's right. So I want to get to before we close up here I want to get to House Bill 301.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

Yes long wind up to that that's right to the to the to the politics of of this particular and what's going on here in North Carolina.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

So this is a bill that we absolutely support at NC values it started out as a social media bill but they added some AI provisions in so um this bill prohibits social media platforms from allowing anyone 13 years old or young and younger from having a social media account and it requires the social media companies to delete any accounts already held by those children children who are 14 and 15 years old would need a parent or guardian to consent to open any account.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

I will not consent although my kids are about out of that range but yes.

SPEAKER_03 35:12

So this bill was filed last year in the House and then it got stalled in the Senate um this year the Senate sent it to the education committee and they added some of these AI provisions in and I believe it's set to be heard next week in the Senate Judiciary Committee. And the AI provisions are mostly aimed towards how do we use AI in education. So under this new language the state board of education would be required to update its computer science standards to include instruction on the use of artificial intelligence and it would also require the State Department of Public Instruction to partner um with NC State's Friday Institute for educational innovation to develop AI training requirements for educators. So this is I think I mean I think this is good.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

This is a I wonder what that means I don't I you know like an AI training requirement it's like how to use it or how to like solve for it how how how to you know not have your kids be addicted you know too reliant on AI.

SPEAKER_03 36:27

Yeah well I think that the goal here is to be thoughtful in North Carolina about how we're integrating AI into education.

SPEAKER_02 36:39

Yeah I I I mean in in the course that that's kind of what we're talking about how we have to get back to the earlier conversation about making sure we can think I mean I just wonder if we're not going to you know go back in time in classrooms and soon we're gonna have just you know chalkboards again because it's in your chalboards or blue books or whatever. Yeah chalkboards blue books just go to old school technology because people were learning right I mean I we're not anti-technology we're not anti-advancement but we have to recognize when you know ultimately we as humans what are we created for right? It's like how did God make us he made us for people which is why we don't want technology replacing people and he gave us minds that he intends us to understand the creation with and that's why knowledge that's why science was you know originally a Christian study. It was you know developed by people who believe there was a creator and as a result of believing there's a creator believe that there are rules to the creation and so we want to understand how they work creative.

SPEAKER_03 37:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

And that's where science comes from right let's understand this world that God created and that's in and that process it really is part of what makes us human I think is just knowing and learning and struggling and doing that work of of learning things. And and we don't want to deprive ourselves as a species of that experience because I I mean I think that is what we're created for. We're not created to just have you know robots do everything for us while we sit around and binge Netflix. That's not an existence that we want and that's kind of the concern of of maybe where AI is taking us where we don't actually have to do anything because we have machines that can do it all for us. Then what? What do we exist for to rule and subdue?

SPEAKER_03 38:27

And um yeah yeah so I think you know in summary I think it's good to have obviously a healthy skepticism towards this new technology and understanding that we don't want this new generation of children to be a beta for AI that I mean well I I think those we have new technology we are going to be a beta we're gonna like in a sense that's in some ways that's unavoidable but in other ways I think we can do this in as thoughtful a way as possible. I think I do I I don't think there was enough conversation in society about social media and the way that that was affecting children. That surprised us I think I think it did we have no we had no we had no um you know nothing to compare it to right the the fo AI is the same but I think coming out of that whole social media revolution I guess you could call it I think we have something we're we're looking here at this new AI and we're like okay let's maybe do this differently and think about how is this gonna impact the kids and and um what's going to be best for them.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Yeah and and I think I mean and I guess I just said it but maybe I'll say it better. It's it's just this idea of whether it's social media or AI or any technology that we have, right? It's like what's a gun for that's you know that's technology and weapons of war and all of these things that that that exist is how do we make sure as believers in the way we interact with technology technological innovations which have always been happening and always will happen. I at one point I read an article back in the day about people who were concerned about trains because they believed that people were not people were not made to ever go beyond 35 miles an hour was the headline right so there were like people alarmists about the advances of technology because trains were going to go too fast and people were going to be harmed, right? So anxiety over emerging technology is not a new problem. And I don't know who was complaining about the wheel but at some point somebody I'm sure was complaining about the wheel and whatever they thought it might do that was harmful. So change is not bad adaptation is good ruling and subduing is good and all of this technology though we express our you know we have concerns about it comes with real advantages and that's not just because it makes me better at like cooking at home it's it right it it it solves our our our lives and solves problems for us.

SPEAKER_03 40:58

And so we can I think um approach it with wisdom without being afraid I agree I agree well thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of Politics for Happy People. We hope you will subscribe if you like what you heard today. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Friday thanks so much for listening