AI is a double‑edged sword

There seems to be a neo-Luddite strain of thought re-emerging in popular culture, targeting artificial intelligence and LLMs. A lot of people are very apprehensive about technology these days, and are openly expressing their anti‑AI sentiments freely, even those from within tech communities. In many ways, I tend to agree with them in their assessment of the current state of things; it's bad, and needs to get better before it gets too bad to be fixed.

However, the outright rejection of AI in totality is foolhardy. It's a tool like anything else, and how that tool is used is what matters. It's the old "guns don't kill people - people do" argument. In some ways, AI could be like a loaded gun in the wrong hands. It's obviously being used for nefarious means, not only by governments and corporations but by otherwise normal, average people who now have free access to this technology.

It's a double‑edged sword, but I don't think both edges are equally sharp. I use LLMs on a daily basis. I don't use them with malicious intent, but I can see how someone could, and would, and that bothers me more than I like to admit. But rejecting LLMs in their entirety doesn't help the situation or rectify the problems we currently face.

If you are worried that AI will be used as a weapon - and trust me, it will - then perhaps you shouldn't reject it, but rather adopt it. You might need it to fight back against the coming storm.