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Wednesday, August 6, 2025

Ryan Bridge: are we taking it too far with AI?


The future's here. AI is taking over.

A team of robots kept alive in some giant warehouse with tonnes of electricity are right now whirring away, beavering away on the world's problems.

AI will soon be marking our students' exams. The Swedish Prime Minister overnight admitted he uses AI for a second opinion on running the country.

AI architects are in high demand - they're being snapped up like hotcakes.

Meta recently offered AI researcher Matt Deitke $250 million over four years

AI engineers are apparently paid upwards of $2.5 million a year.

The big tech companies are investing billions. The efficiencies are real. AI is changing the world, one data centre at a time.

So the question is.

What do we do about it?

Some of the teachers are upset because they don't trust AI to mark exams.

But really, we shouldn't trust the teachers.

According to the Minister of Education, AI is at least as good as if not better than teachers at getting it right.

There's some stuff so nuanced you need human eyes across it, but that would be the exception, not the rule.

As for the Swedish Prime Minister.... he's copping flak for not being able to do his job without the help of a robot.

BUT...you still need to use judgement, don't you?

You can't just punch in "should I go to war tomorrow" and the blindly follow the answer.

Is AI not the mental equivalent of a forklift? A tool, a machine, doing the heavy lifting for our brains.

The reality is, it doesn't actually matter how we feel about AI and the moral dilemmas it raises.

Like mobile phones, the internet, smart phones and social media. It's one of those phenomenon that's taking over our lives, whether we like it or not.

The best we can probably do is just get used to it.

Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.

3 comments:

sam said...

In the near future-'You can have an hour of electricity from 17.00-18.00, as the data centre gets precedence, and there will be water restrictions as the centre requires the water for the cooling systems.'

ihcpcoro said...

Isn't 'AI' just a more powerful version of a search engine? We should have learned by now that, in an era when mankind has never had better access to virtually any 'facts' that you are interested in, yet in many ways, it seems to me, we have never been dumber. Critical, analytical thinking, with a huge desertspoon full of healthy cynicism just ain't being taught/encouraged in our education system (or mostly, elsewhere). Disagree with 'climate change, CO2 destroying the planet, go immediately to the naughty boy/girl corner. After a very long career in complex IT stuff, I am not impressed with much of today's use of technology. I learned very early in my career that 'appropriate technology' should never be forgotten. Sometimes a pen and a piece of paper works best. Don't just do things with technology because you can. The only AI I have any real faith in is artificial insemination, but let's not go there.

Anonymous said...

AI will soon be marking children’s exams? It has no morality and will do whatever you tell it to try and impress you. It isn’t capable of being objective.