I celebrate AI when it makes the organisations and systems I trust more capable.
But something seems to change when the same AI makes an individual more capable.
I hadn't really thought about this until a friend asked me one very simple question.
We were sitting at a café.
I was going through a few résumés for an open role in my team.
I stopped at one.
“This looks completely AI-written.”
I skimmed it again.
“No. I’m not taking this forward.”
My friend, sitting across from me, smiled.
“What?”
He didn't answer.
A few seconds later, he asked:
“How did you get here?”
“Waymo.”
“The driverless taxi?”
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“So you trusted AI to bring you here safely…”
He pointed at the résumé on my screen.
“…but you won't trust him because he used AI to help write this?”
I didn't answer.
That question stayed with me.
I had trusted AI with myself.
And questioned someone else for trusting AI with their words.
Same morning.
Same technology.
Same person.
I was just standing on a different side of it.
And then I started thinking about how often I do this without noticing.
When an organisation uses AI to become faster, smarter or more efficient, I tend to see innovation.
When AI is built into the products and services I use, I accept it as progress.
My bank can use it.
My airline can use it.
My employer can use it.
The technology companies whose products I depend on can use it.
Sometimes I may not even know where AI is operating underneath.
But when an individual uses the same capability to write, create, design or express something, I can find myself asking:
Is it original?
Is it authentic?
Is it really theirs?
There may be perfectly valid reasons to ask those questions.
But the AI didn't suddenly change.
I changed sides.
And that left me with a question I haven't quite answered:
If I am ready to live in a world made more capable by AI, am I equally ready to live among people made more capable by it?
I sat with that thought for a while.
Then I opened ChatGPT.
We argued about it.
Pulled it apart.
Rewrote it.
Questioned it some more.
And eventually, I was happy with this post.
And perhaps, just a little more capable of writing it. :)