{"id":300,"date":"2026-06-10T10:00:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T09:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/?p=300"},"modified":"2026-06-08T14:53:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T13:53:34","slug":"ay-aye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/2026\/06\/10\/ay-aye\/","title":{"rendered":"Ay? Aye!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve\u00a0decided I\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0use AI in the writing of this blog.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0not that\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0against AI, I use it every day, but I wanted to get my thoughts out\u00a0\u2013 my own thoughts \u2013 about some aspects of the AI revolution that\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0finding disquieting.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re\u00a0not having\u00a0a\u00a0conversation about how people\u00a0<\/span>feel<\/span><\/i>\u00a0about the relentless embedding of AI at work. In my area,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0nearly all\u00a0about efficiency; find information,\u00a0sift\u00a0and synthesise and summarise, make processes flow, save people\u2019s time for \u201cvalue-adding work.\u201d\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0not always clear what that is, but\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0an\u00a0underlying message that AI is so good for efficiency, we should look for ways to adopt it as quickly as we can. I\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0argue with\u00a0the\u00a0end goal, but some people are less quick to pick up and run with technological tools, and\u00a0maybe they\u2019re\u00a0feeling rushed or pressured,\u00a0or held back from going further,\u00a0or\u00a0anxious about their jobs.\u00a0Crucially, in my experience, we\u00a0haven\u2019t\u00a0asked them.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m\u00a0particularly exercised\u00a0at the moment\u00a0by\u00a0questions of\u00a0creativity,\u00a0originality\u00a0and attribution.\u00a0You\u2019ll\u00a0doubtless have heard some of the controversy\u00a0from the arts,\u00a0where entire bands, films, movie stars have been generated by AIs aggregating features from those already in existence.\u00a0\u00a0In research and education, the subjects of originality and innovation are front and centre, so academic areas are talking\u00a0critically\u00a0about\u00a0AI\u2019s role all the time. But in professional services\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0come across it much less.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the heart of this, for me, is the interaction of AI capabilities with our real-life\u00a0human ethics.\u00a0There\u2019s\u00a0a universal principle,\u00a0sometimes\u00a0enshrined in laws,\u00a0that\u00a0you\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0take credit for other people\u2019s\u00a0creations.\u00a0\u00a0We all know that some people transgress this.\u00a0But our understanding of creativity and originality, developed over thousands of years, is being\u00a0re-written in the blink of an eye.\u00a0All culture builds on something that went before. Music is written\u00a0by people who have absorbed many\u00a0tunes\u00a0and whose minds consciously and unconsciously\u00a0make something new from that experience.\u00a0Technological tools have helped with this for the last 50 years, so is\u00a0it\u00a0very\u00a0different\u00a0from\u00a0asking a computer to scan a great expanse of human knowledge and\u00a0do the same?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think it\u00a0is,\u00a0because\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0becoming obscured is the hand of the creator. We know that AI\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0think like a human, and certainly not\u00a0in subconscious ways, so all those\u00a0embodied experience, instincts and senses that make something a human creation\u00a0are\u00a0<\/span>not\u00a0<\/span>being used by AIs.\u00a0Whether\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a grand symphony or a LinkedIn post, our ethical responsibility is to figure out when that matters, when it\u00a0doesn\u2019t, and be honest about\u00a0who\u2019s\u00a0done what.\u00a0We also need to think about\u00a0what we value and care about. If\u00a0you\u00a0enjoy an AI-generated song, should I care? If someone has used Co-Pilot to\u00a0structure and tidy up their email, should I care?\u00a0If someone starts a piece of work by asking an AI for ideas,\u00a0or even a complete solution,\u00a0should I care?\u00a0Actually, I\u00a0think I do. Because I will then never know if it was your work, and you will stop being able to do things for yourself.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, you may not care.\u00a0And there is the thing I\u00a0believe we should talk about more than we do. How do I feel\u00a0about AI,\u00a0and\u00a0among all the benefits and costs,\u00a0what should I care about?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve\u00a0decided I\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0use AI in the writing of this blog.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0not that\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0against AI, I use it every day, but I wanted to get my thoughts out\u00a0\u2013 my own thoughts \u2013 about some aspects of the AI revolution that\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0finding disquieting.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019re\u00a0not having\u00a0a\u00a0conversation about...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":369,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-simon-inger"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/369"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/changing-ourselves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}