My wife and I recently returned from a two-thousand-mile road trip. We visited family in Omaha, Nebraska, and Nauvoo, Illinois. On the way home, we visited Hannibal, Missouri, to see the boyhood home of one of my heroes, Mark Twain, and then Springfield, Illinois, to visit the Presidential Library and Museum of Abraham Lincoln, another of my heroes.

At the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, we watched a presentation by a historian who reminded us of the importance of studying history (so we don’t repeat our past mistakes). We were told the presentation featured a hologram, but as I watched, I couldn’t be sure whether the historian was an actual human being until he suddenly vanished near the end. The whole presentation was impressive, but especially the lifelike hologram.

I occasionally listen to a podcast about my church. At the end of recent episodes, I heard the voices of three prominent church leaders making snarky remarks about current issues facing the church. But I knew it wasn’t them because of the tone and content of the comments. Besides, two of them are deceased.

That got me thinking about modern technology and artificial intelligence.

I began my legal career in 1979, back in the dark ages of modern technology. Word processors were in their infancy, but my firm was proud that it was one of the few that outfitted all our support staff with them. I also saw the beginning of advanced technology in some of the firm’s other practices.  We had an extensive central filing system containing all the research memos and agreement forms the firm had ever produced. The goal was never to have to reinvent something previously created. It made our attorneys more efficient and saved our clients money.

As scanners improved, we digitized and indexed all those memos and agreements. We added to this digital library all the presentations and articles from continuing legal education seminars we attended. Before starting any new project, an attorney consulted this digital library and found numerous resources as a starting point.

However, with every new technological advance, there was a good and bad side. Historically, law firms hired an army of lawyers to search through documents submitted by the other side in litigation. But by digitizing the records and entering a few keywords into a search program, what took dozens of attorneys weeks to review hundreds of documents to find that proverbial smoking gun, a single computer could do it in a single day. That meant law firms could get by with fewer attorneys, and many law firm associates worried they would soon be out of a job, replaced by a computer or two. It wasn’t just litigators, though. With new online research techniques, modern technology could affect us all.

My fears were somewhat lessened when I read an article in a legal journal. The article argued that computers help with productivity, but lawyers who were good with people, creative, or could analyze the data the computers found would always be needed. But I could be in trouble again if computers could ever be taught to think for themselves.

War Games[i] was one of my favorite movies during this time. In this 1983 film, a young computer whiz named David Lightman (played by Matthew Broderick) accidentally hacks into a U.S. military supercomputer while searching for new video games. Mistakenly believing he is playing a game, he initiates a series of nuclear war simulations, triggering alarms and drawing the attention of the military. As tensions rise and the threat of an actual atomic conflict looms, David teams up with his girlfriend, Jennifer, to convince the military that the “game” is not just a simulation. To stop the computer from launching nuclear warheads, David challenges it to a game of Tic Tac Toe. Here is the scene from the film:      

By repeatedly ending each game in a stalemate, the computer “learns” there can never be a winner in Tic Tac Toe—and in nuclear warfare, and thus, the threat is extinguished.

But in real life, computers could never learn to think, right? That’s what I thought forty years ago. But I know differently now.

Artificial intelligence, or AI, works by using algorithms and models to process data and make decisions. At its core, AI systems learn from large amounts of data through techniques like machine learning, where they identify patterns and improve their performance over time.

1. Data Collection: AI starts with gathering data, which can be anything from images to text to numerical values.
2. Training: Machine learning models are trained on this data. They adjust their internal parameters to minimize errors in predictions or classifications.
3. Algorithms: Various algorithms, such as neural networks, decision trees, or support vector machines, process the data and learn from it.
4. Testing and Validation: After training, the model is tested on new data to ensure it can generalize its learning and perform well in real-world scenarios.
5. Deployment: Once validated, the AI model can be deployed in applications like virtual assistants, recommendation systems, or autonomous vehicles.
6. Continuous Learning: Many AI systems can continue to learn and adapt as they receive new data over time.

Overall, AI combines data, algorithms, and computing power to mimic cognitive functions, enabling machines to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence.

But will AI ever get to the point where it replaces humans who are good with people, creative, empathic, and capable of love? Movies certainly think so.

In the 2014 film Ex Machina,[ii] a young programmer named Caleb (played by Domhnall Gleeson) is invited to a remote research facility to administer a Turing test to an advanced AI named Ava (played by Alicia Vikander), created by reclusive tech CEO Nathan. As Caleb interacts with Ava, he falls in love with her, even though he knows she isn’t human. Please check out this scene from the film:

Ex Machina reminded me of another of my favorite films from last century, the 1975 version of The Stepford Wives[iii] starring Katharine Ross (not the remake starring Nicole Kidman). In The Stepford Wives, a woman named Joanna Eberhart (Ross) moves to the seemingly idyllic town of Stepford, only to discover that submissive, robot-like versions of themselves are replacing the local women. As she investigates the dark secret behind the town’s perfection, Joanna confronts the sinister forces that threaten her identity and autonomy. But in the end, she, too, is replaced by a robot so that all the women of Stepford look and act like this:

Would the world be so bad if all the women looked like Katharine Ross? I’m just kidding, Ladies.

Whether we like it or not, artificial intelligence is here to stay. And like all new technologies, its use can be good and evil. Instead of closing a blind eye to it, we should embrace it. In preparing this blog post, for example, I used AI to write summaries of the three movies I referred to and describe how AI works. I also use AI to correct my spelling and grammar and suggest alternative word choices. On the other hand, we need to use AI ethically and punish those who use it for evil. Much needs to be done to stop cyber stalkers and scammers who use AI to lure us into physical danger or coax our money from us and prevent AI from running amok. But I will leave that topic for another blog post.

AI, though, is still a long way from replacing humans. One AI site, Pi, advertises itself as “a kind and supportive companion offering conversations, friendly advice, and concise information in a natural, flowing style.” So, I gave it a try. I told it I was feeling sad and could use some cheering up. In response, it told me a couple of dad jokes. That was not what I was looking for, so I went deeper. I told it I was sad because of the recent loss of my son to suicide. It offered its condolences, told me it’s OK not to be OK, that grief has no timetable and affects people differently, and suggested I see a therapist. Pi said all the right things, but it lacked the warm and in-depth discussion I would have expected from a human.

In conclusion, I agree with the findings of Kevin Roose from The New York Times,[iv] who spent a month “hanging out” with 18 A.I. friends he had created:

“Research on the long-term effects of A.I. companionship is fairly thin, since the technology is so new, but it does seem to be a short-term help in some cases. One study conducted by Stanford researchers in 2023 found that some users of A.I. companions reported decreased anxiety and increased feelings of social support. A few even reported that their A.I. companions had talked them out of suicide or self-harm.

“I buy the argument that for some people, A.I. companionship can be good for mental health. But I worry that some of these apps are simply distracting users from their loneliness. And I fear that as this technology improves, some people might miss out on building relationships with humans because they’re overly attached to their A.I. friends.

“There’s also a bigger problem to overcome, which is that A.I. companions lack many of the qualities that make human friends rewarding.

“In real life, I don’t love my friends because they respond to my texts instantaneously, or send me horoscope-quality platitudes when I tell them about my day. I don’t love my wife because she sends me love poems out of the blue, or agrees with everything I say.

“I love these people because they are humans—surprising, unpredictable humans, who can choose to text me back or not, to listen to me or not. I love them because they are not programmed to care about me, and they do anyway.” Similarly, I love the humans in my life. I will continue to use AI to help me be more productive, but I will never let AI replace the relationships I enjoy with my human family—includin

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[i] War Games:

• Production Companies: United Artists and Sherwood Productions
• Director: John Badham
• Screenwriters: Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes
• Starring: Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, and John Wood
• Release Date: June 3, 1983

[ii] Ex Machina:

• Production Companies: A24, Universal Pictures, and Film4
• Director: Alex Garland
• Screenwriter: Alex Garland
• Starring: Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, and Oscar Isaac
• Release Date: April 24, 2015

[iii] The Stepford Wives:

• Production Companies: Palomar Pictures International and Fadsin Cinema Associates
• Director: Bryan Forbes
• Screenwriters: Ira Levin and William Goldman
• Starring: Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss, and Peter Masterson
• Release Date: February 12, 1975

[iv] “Meet My AI Friends,” by Keven Roose, The New York Times, May 9, 2024