A Stranger Told Me AI Was the End of Humanity. This Is What I Said.

I took an Uber this past week to help a client.

One thing I’ve committed to doing when I leave the house, which isn’t often lately, is wearing my dot bracelet and intentionally sharing it with at least
one stranger. It’s a digital business card bracelet that lets someone instantly access and save my information with a simple tap or scan. No apps.
No friction. Just connection.

An Uber ride turned out to be the perfect environment for that.

During the ride, I explained what I do. I help people and organizations find ways to leverage AI. That usually sparks curiosity. This time, it did
too, but almost immediately the curiosity turned into certainty. He told me AI was 666 and the downfall of humanity.

This wasn’t a new conversation for me.

I understand where these fears come from. We all experience the world through different lenses shaped by belief systems, lived experiences, and the
information we consume. I also understand that there are very real concerns surrounding AI.

As of today, AI remains largely unregulated. That is not a small issue. It creates serious risks across security, privacy, safety, misuse, and harm.
Policy is not optional. It is required.

As the conversation continued, he voiced something deeper than fear of technology. He was worried about people being displaced from jobs and careers.
About the loss of authenticity. About what happens when creativity, art, and expression are generated instead of lived.

And he’s not wrong.

We are witnessing real displacement right now. Jobs are being eliminated. Roles are being collapsed. Entire teams have been removed too quickly and
too confidently. What many companies are now realizing is that replacement without adaptation doesn’t work.

They still need us.

What’s happening next is a pivot. Retraining programs. New roles. New titles. New expectations. Companies are discovering that AI without people who
understand context, judgment, and intention is ineffective and often harmful.

AI is a tool. It expands output. It accelerates access to information. It amplifies capability. But it does not decide what matters.

We do.

Another part of the problem is that most people don’t actually understand what AI is.

Because it isn’t within their realm of work or lived experience, they observe it from a distance. And anything viewed from far away starts to feel
mystical. Abstract. Dangerous.

Distance creates mythology.

When you don’t see how something works, fear fills in the gaps. AI becomes an all-knowing force. A sentient threat. A thing that decides on its own.

But when you’re closer to it, when you work with it or understand what’s happening under the hood, the fear shifts.

The mechanic is not amused.

Once the veil is lifted, it looks less like magic and more like math. Less like a wizard and more like a system. It’s the Wizard of Oz moment.
Impressive from afar. Understandable once you see what’s actually behind the curtain.

At its core, AI is pattern recognition at scale. Probabilities. Statistics. Trained on massive amounts of data created by us. Its unpredictability
doesn’t come from intent or consciousness. It comes from the complexity and bias of the data it was trained on.

That doesn’t make it harmless. But it does make it knowable.

And when something is knowable, the conversation changes.

The driver also brought up AI-generated music and the loss of authenticity.

That’s something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about myself.

I love music. I love learning. I value education deeply. And when I think about creativity, I think about how no one creates in isolation. Every
artist is influenced. Every writer is shaped by what they’ve read. Every musician carries echoes of what they’ve heard, practiced, studied, and
lived.

There is no creation without inspiration.

AI doesn’t change that. It exposes it.

At its core, AI is a massive archive of collective knowledge. Larger, wider, and deeper than anything we’ve ever had access to before. What we choose
to do with that archive is where intention comes in.

That’s part of why I started telling stories through AI-generated music with TheMusicAuntie.

The goal was never to replace artists or pretend the music came from nowhere. The goal was to use sound as a bridge. To reach people who felt done.
Burned out. Disconnected. To help shift mindsets through music that carries encouragement, reflection, and possibility.

Music has always done that for us.

Some people will use AI to tell a musical story. Others, especially working artists, will use it to generate beats, ideas, or early versions before
recording the final piece themselves. That doesn’t remove artistry. It changes the workflow.

And for many creators, that change matters. It lowers barriers. It reduces cost. It speeds experimentation. It gives people the ability to create
without waiting for permission.

Will there be misuse? Yes.
Will there be shortcuts? Yes.

But there will also be people who finally get to create something meaningful because a tool made it possible.

The real issue is not the technology.

It’s the absence of clear rules. The lack of policy around ownership, attribution, compensation, and ethical use. Around creativity. Around consent. Around boundaries.

Machines can generate.

We decide what matters.

The people who struggle most in this era will not be the least technical.

They will be the least intentional.

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Mstimaj