These are my grandparents.
My grandfather, “Papaw,” recently turned 90. My Nana turns 83 this week.
Her memory is mostly gone now. She no longer remembers who I am.
Long before I was born, she held prejudices that could have created distance between us. But her heart changed. Even though she may not remember my name today, the affection is still there.
Somewhere deeper than memory, she seems to remember that she loves me.
That is good enough for me.
Papaw is still remarkably sharp. We recently sat down and talked about life from the perspective of someone who has lived for 90 years.
This is a man who witnessed World War II, served as a cook in the Army, remembers when air conditioning in a car felt like advanced technology, lived through the Civil Rights Movement, and watched the world transform countless times.
But when our conversation turned to AI, it was different.
He approached it with healthy skepticism, but AI seemed to fall outside even his enormous frame of reference. When we discussed the possibility of intelligence without a human ceiling and what could happen if we get it wrong, even 90 years of lived experience offered no point of comparison.
The truth is, none of us have one.
I recently had
Carl Fraik, co-founder and executive director of the
Cincinnati AI Catalyst, on AI on the Rocks for an upcoming episode.
We discussed why the future of AI cannot focus only on businesses and employees. It must also consider citizens and entire communities.
Carl’s AI Blueprint for the Cincinnati Region includes nonprofits, arts and culture, education, government, healthcare, and citizen engagement. It gives me hope that people like Carl are thinking about those who may never work with AI but will still live with its consequences.
That includes older adults like my grandparents.
I spend so much time thinking about how AI will affect businesses and what comes next that I sometimes forget this technology will affect all of us.
AI on the Rocks cannot give a microphone only to the people building AI. It must also make room for the people who will live with what we build.
We all have something at stake.
Maybe I need to put Papaw in the AI on the Rocks chair. Ninety years of perspective deserves a microphone.