Roundtable Commentary
The View from Lou: AI
We did a vibe check on how we’re all feeling about AI. The reading? Well…
Every week we send a few questions to Louisvillians from all over town who do all kinds of things. Last week, we checked in about how the whole AI thing is going down — more on a vibes/emotion level as opposed to guessing about the future. The response was pretty resounding. Let’s just say that if AI were a person, there would be precious few party invitations in the mailbox.
What’s the first image that comes to mind when you hear “AI”?
Multiple choice: I’ve used AI…
Then we all chose an emotion for how AI makes us feel
(from the wheel at the top of the page)
Not surprising to many of us, I’m sure, but it’s a stark result. When the cultural message about AI is all too often “learn it or be left behind,” it’s a clear signal of some reckoning to come.
During a recent forum on AI and data centers held at the Envirome Institute downtown, Rev. Elise Owen brought up Pope Leo’s encyclical, and boiled it down this way: “If AI is regulated in such a way that its use makes us more fully human…then it is something to embrace. But, if AI is regulated in such a way that reduces our ability to be fully human…then we should resist it with all that we are and hope to be.”