The real danger of A.I.—I speculate—is not that it’s going to replace us (as some who’ve gotten a little too immersed in their reading and viewing of apocalyptic science fiction fear), but that it’ll make us increasingly artistically and intellectually lazy in all our creative endeavors. Why spend the years teaching ourselves how to write, draw, paint, sculpt, etc. when an A.I. generator can whip up something aesthetically and/or intellectually pleasing for us in a few minutes? Also, what will happen to those A.I. generators’ “creativity” if they’re increasingly being “trained” on their own regurgitated works?

As with other technology we’ve used to make our lives easier, there will likely always be cultural rebels among us who insist on doing their creative works the more difficult “old school” way (e.g. the Amish with their decidedly agrarian low-tech lifestyles), but chances are they’ll be few and far between. So what becomes of popular culture when its creativity is sterilized? Seems to me our A.I. might be luring us toward a saccharine dystopian future in something like the style of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World more than a Matrix or Terminator-style robotic revolt.