Making Sense of Artificial Intelligence in a Rapidly Changing World

Last month, I wrote about living in a world of extraordinary possibilities and extraordinary complexity. I mentioned the very human challenge of navigating uncertainty, purpose, work, technology, and artificial intelligence. I also suggested that one of the questions before us is how technology can support our values rather than quietly shape them.

Artificial intelligence may be one of the clearest examples of why that conversation matters.

Although generative AI seems to have arrived overnight, artificial intelligence itself is not new. Researchers have been exploring the idea of intelligent machines for more than seventy years. What feels different is not that AI suddenly appeared, but that the pace of change has accelerated dramatically. The computing power required to develop and operate modern AI systems has grown dramatically, especially over the last fifteen years. I first encountered AI in my own work more than a decade ago, long before most of us were talking about chatbots over dinner.

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That acceleration helps explain why so many people feel as though the ground is shifting beneath them. The speed of change can make it difficult to separate what is genuinely new from what is simply receiving more attention.

At the same time, we are surrounded by competing stories.

On one side, we hear that AI will revolutionize medicine, transform education, accelerate scientific discovery, and remove tedious work from our lives. On the other side, we hear warnings about rogue superintelligence, mass unemployment, misinformation, and machines that may eventually escape human control.

Popular culture has prepared us well for the second story. For decades, movies like The Terminator have imagined intelligent machines turning against humanity.

Open almost any newspaper today and you'll find headlines that reinforce those fears.

In early August, The New York Times published an article titled "When A.I. Goes Rogue," accompanied by the subtitle, "It was the stuff of science fiction—until recently."

It's an alarming headline. When we hear phrases like goes rogue, most of us imagine intention—something deciding to rebel or ignore its creator. Yet today's AI systems do not possess ambitions or motives in the human sense. They operate according to instructions and boundaries established by the people who design and use them. When their behavior appears "rogue," it is often because the systems are carrying out instructions in ways their designers did not foresee, revealing the challenges of writing instructions and designing systems that behave as we intend.

The headlines also leave out another important reality: artificial intelligence exists within a world of competition, investment, and incentives. Companies are racing to develop products, attract customers, and gain market share. News organizations compete for attention.

Real life, as usual, is more complicated than the headline.

AI is not simply changing our digital world; it is changing the physical world around us.

It is easy to think of artificial intelligence as something distant or futuristic, but many of us already encounter it when our email filters spam, our maps suggest a faster route home, our bank flags suspicious activity, or a streaming service recommends a movie. Behind these everyday experiences is an ecosystem of technology and infrastructure that most of us rarely see.

As AI capabilities expand, some people have raised questions about electricity use, water consumption, and the impact of data centers on local communities, while others point to improvements in efficiency and argue that the benefits will outweigh the costs. Researchers continue to debate how AI's growth will affect energy systems and society in the years ahead.

I don't raise these debates or competing stories to suggest that artificial intelligence is either good or bad. They simply remind us that, like any major change, technology has consequences.

For many of us, however, the questions are more personal.

Will AI take my job?

What skills will matter in the future?

How will creativity change?

How should artists think about ownership?

What does retirement look like in a world where technology evolves faster every year?

The answers will likely be different depending on who you are and where you stand. Some jobs will change dramatically. Some tasks will disappear. New roles will emerge. Many people are rushing to learn the latest tools, worried that falling behind means becoming irrelevant.

But learning how to use a tool is not the same as learning how to think well.

For me, the question is no longer whether we should use AI. It is how. More importantly, how do we use it without losing the habits of mind that make us human?

I use AI regularly, but I try to remain mindful of where and why I use it.: Am I using it intentionally?

Is the way I'm using it aligned with my values?

What responsibilities am I delegating, and which ones should remain my own?

AI can become a crutch, just as many technologies can. We can outsource brainstorming before wrestling with an idea ourselves, ask a system to make decisions we have not fully considered, or reach for our phones the moment we encounter boredom.

Technology can expand our access to information, but it cannot relieve us of the responsibility to think.

As artificial intelligence becomes woven into more aspects of our lives, perhaps the most important questions are not technological at all.

What is this helping me do?

What am I still responsible for?

Is the way I am using it aligned with what matters most to me?

Those questions will not settle the enormous debates surrounding artificial intelligence. But they may help us approach this moment with something more useful than either excitement or fear: curiosity, discernment, and a renewed commitment to being fully human.

Perhaps the most important skill AI asks of us isn't learning a new tool. It's learning how to think well in a world where certainty is increasingly hard to find.

Next month, I'll explore what it means to cultivate human intelligence, creativity, and judgment in an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.

Sources

• Bennhold, Katrin. "When A.I. Goes Rogue." The New York Times, August 4, 2026.

• Leppert, Rebecca. "What We Know About Energy Use at U.S. Data Centers Amid the AI Boom." Pew Research Center, October 24, 2025.

• Energy and AI. International Energy Agency, April 2025.

Originally published in the Navigating Through Today’s World column of the Unity of New Braunfels newsletter. Read the original publication →