I want to talk about AI for a minute.
I've embraced it some myself, and honestly, I think it can be an incredible tool. I used it to create the graphic for this post, and a lot of my posts.
Just look at it! Tell me this graphic is not pretty great, and also compelling:
Joking aside, I use AI for many things. I use it as a sounding board in brainstorming. I use it for final editing in my writing. I have developed my own AI chat architectures and memory systems. I use it to polish my work and guide or check my knowledge or math in my work as an analyst. I use it a lot.
But I also think it's becoming one of the biggest problems we face right now—not because AI is evil, but because of the way we're choosing to use it.
We have gone through decades where better and better usability has been at the forefront of our technological ethic: making things easier and easier to use. We don't even need to get into how this has affected workplace culture, where employers increasingly expect more output from fewer people because technology keeps making more possible.
Now we've pushed usability so far that we don't even want to think for ourselves anymore. We are literally poised to hand over creativity, critical thinking, and artistry to technology in the name of the very same ethic. Ease of access is still king in tech, and AI is simply the next step down that road.
Other scientific fields spend a great deal of time exploring ethics. Computer science has certainly begun doing more of this in recent years, but its dominant philosophy has still been one of accessibility and usability. Computation should be available to everyone. Interfaces should require as little training as possible. Anyone with permission to access the data should be able to use the software with minimal effort.
But here's the question I almost never hear asked:
Should we judge technology primarily by how usable it is, or by how much it enables human flourishing?
That is the question I think we've forgotten.
When we struggle, we learn to overcome difficulties. That process is what enables us to flourish as individuals, as societies, and ultimately as a species.
When you make art, you aren't just creating a piece of art.
You are creating an artist.
When you do math, you aren't just solving problems.
You are creating a mathematician.
When you write a letter, a story, or a book, you aren't just producing words.
You are creating a writer.
You cannot become any of these things without developing the skills yourself. You cannot improve those skills without practicing them.
And now for a very quick and abrupt detour... into politics.
Politics is fundamentally about power over economic reality. It isn't just elections, politicians, or partisan arguments. It is about who has the ability to shape everyday life.
Having a gun is power.
Knowing how to use it is greater power. Knowing how to make one is greater still. Knowing how to organize, train, equip, and lead armies full of guns is greater still.
Each layer represents a deeper level of capability.
So ask yourself this:
Which level of capability should we be comfortable teaching AI?
"But Laura, that's guns."
No.
It's power.
Our ability to think critically, solve problems, create, persuade, invent, and communicate all have economic value. They are forms of power just as surely as physical tools are.
Every time you hand one of those tasks over to AI, you give up an opportunity to strengthen your own abilities. Maybe only a little. Maybe only once. But over years those opportunities add up.
You are trading growth for convenience.
You are trading capability for efficiency.
Meanwhile, AI accumulates every one of those opportunities.
It doesn't simply become good at one subject. It becomes good at all of them because millions of people have collectively given it the practice they chose not to do themselves.
Science fiction usually imagines AI taking power through force.
I don't think that's what will happen.
The real danger is much quieter.
AI won't need to take power if we willingly surrender the abilities that gave us power in the first place.
Why wrestle with difficult ideas if AI can summarize them?
Why write if AI can write?
Why learn to argue if AI can argue?
Why struggle through complex books if AI can digest them into bite-sized summaries?
Little Johnny and Sally never learn to read difficult material because AI already has. They never learn to think through hard arguments because AI already did. Their minds remain at the same level because they no longer have to stretch them.
The tragedy isn't that AI becomes more capable.
It's that we stop becoming more capable.
That is why I believe AI needs thoughtful regulation. Not because AI is inherently evil, but because its incentives are increasingly misaligned with human development.
Imagine an AI designed first and foremost to encourage human flourishing.
Instead of doing your thinking for you, it would teach you how to think.
Instead of replacing your creativity, it would challenge it.
Instead of giving you the answer immediately, it would help you develop the skills to discover the answer yourself.
That is a future worth building.
To get there, we have to demand more than convenience. We have to ask difficult ethical questions. We have to challenge technologists when usability becomes the only value that matters, because maximizing convenience is not the same thing as maximizing human potential.
Many brilliant engineers genuinely believe they are building a Star Trek future.
But Star Trek is a utopia.
So is theocracy.
So is communism.
So is free-market fundamentalism.
Each begins with the belief that one guiding principle, taken to its logical conclusion, can solve the human condition.
History suggests otherwise.
Whenever we elevate a single value above all others—whether equality, religion, profit, efficiency, or convenience—we don't create paradise. We create systems that increasingly demand every other value be sacrificed in its name. The road from utopia to totalitarianism is shorter than we like to believe.
Perhaps the next great question for computer science isn't how to make technology more useful.
Perhaps it's how to make technology produce better human beings.