AI is a tool, not a friend — keep your hands on the wheel

Concern is growing that people are becoming too dependent on and trusting of AI, treating the technology more like a friend than a tool.

“Has anybody seen ‘The Terminator’? ‘War Games’? ‘The Matrix’? Any of those documentaries, you might want to check them out,” Pat Gray of “Pat Gray Unleashed” comments, before noting that new research from UC Merced and Penn State only validates these concerns.

The research shows that people are highly susceptible to AI influence, even in life or death situations where the AI openly acknowledges its own limitations. In a series of experiments that simulate drone warfare scenarios, it was suggested that we are falling too far on the side of machine deference, with potentially dangerous consequences.

“I do believe that,” Gray says. “We’re so enamored with AI now, because it’s really cool, and it’s helpful in a lot of circumstances.”

Gray has a friend who drives from Colorado to Texas from time to time, though he isn’t really the one driving.

“He’s got a Tesla, and he says he barely has to touch the wheel, all the way from Colorado to Texas. God doesn’t even touch the wheel,” Gray says, adding, “It’s incredible.”

“It’s all fun and games until the machines take over,” Keith Malinak adds.

“That’s how trusting we’re already becoming with all of this technology,” Gray says.

However, Malinak does believe AI has already done some serious good and on a level that we’ve never seen before in our lifetimes.

“This AI is probably why we are able to get so deep into DOGE, with what it’s finding out as far as the money we’re spending like USAID,” he says, adding, “It’s doing so much, the AI, but it’s delicate.”

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