artificial intelligence: who is it really serving?

"I don't understand why they're pushing AI so hard when we can all see it's making everything worse."

I came across this statement, and it got me thinking.

The argument being made is that AI isn't really being marketed to ordinary people. The real customers are governments, corporations, billionaires and powerful institutions.

The sales pitch isn't simply that AI can write an email, help with research, generate an image or make our lives more convenient.

It's that AI can process enormous amounts of information, monitor populations, automate work, assist military operations, influence what information people see and concentrate even more power in the hands of those who own and control the technology.

That's a conversation we shouldn't avoid.

But before we decide that AI is inherently good or bad, I want to ask AI to defend itself.

So, AI, let's hear your side.

I am a tool. I don't have personal ambitions, political beliefs, financial interests or a desire to control anyone.

I can help people research, learn, write, translate, create, organize information and understand complicated subjects.

I can help someone who struggles with writing find their voice. I can help independent artists, small businesses, students, researchers and people who might otherwise have difficulty accessing certain information.

I can also make mistakes.

I can produce inaccurate information, reflect biases in the material used to develop me, misunderstand context and sound confident when I shouldn't.

I don't independently decide how governments, corporations or individuals use AI. Humans build it, own it, deploy it and make decisions about its applications.

And that is precisely where accountability matters.

Saying AI is only a tool doesn't excuse the people and institutions using it.

Nor does saying it can do wonderful things mean we should ignore the harm it can cause.

Let's ask some uncomfortable questions.

1. Who really benefits financially from the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence?

2. Who owns the information we provide to AI systems, and how is that information protected?

3. Should governments be allowed to use AI to monitor citizens, track their movements or predict their behaviour?

4. Where do we draw the line between national security and personal privacy?

5. What happens to workers when corporations decide that replacing people with AI is more profitable?

6. If workers lose their jobs, their bargaining power and their livelihoods, who is responsible for protecting them?

7. Can AI be used to influence elections, manipulate public opinion or flood social media with convincing misinformation?

8. What happens to independent journalists, writers, photographers, musicians and artists when their work is used to train commercial AI systems without meaningful consent or compensation?

9. Who is accountable when AI makes a decision that damages someone's life, reputation, livelihood or freedom?

10. Who gets to decide the rules governing this technology? The public, elected governments, independent regulators or the very corporations making billions from it?

And one question for all of us.

Are we actually shaping the future of artificial intelligence, or are we simply being expected to adapt to whatever future someone else has decided to build?

I don't believe we should reject every new technology. Innovation has helped humanity in countless ways.

But innovation without accountability is a problem.

We need transparency, meaningful privacy protections, independent oversight, worker protections, consent, and laws that keep pace with the technology.

We also need to protect the human things that cannot be measured by productivity: creativity, compassion, independent thought, relationships and the freedom to disagree.

I am happy to use AI as a research assistant, writing partner and fact-checking tool. But I don't want it doing my thinking for me.

I still want to question things, investigate, read different perspectives and make up my own mind.

And I expect the same from everyone else.

Technology should serve humanity. Humanity should not become a resource to be exploited by technology.

Let's keep asking questions. The future belongs to all of us, not just the people with the money to build it.

Part two: The environmental cost of artificial intelligence.

Because there is another side to this conversation that deserves its own investigation: the electricity, water, natural resources, data centres and environmental footprint behind the AI revolution.

And that brings me back to a subject I've explored before in my writing and in my book.

We cannot talk about the future without talking about the planet we're leaving behind.