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“AI makes you think, all while making it easy, super easy not to think.”
PG offered that line during one of three informal conversations FunTimes recorded about artificial intelligence. Josephine questions its relevance to work that needs human contact. Khadijah worries about its demands on communities. PG sees creative possibilities alongside reasons for caution. All three return to the value of people.
Josephine, a Philadelphia social worker, has heard the warnings about AI taking jobs. She does not share that fear.
“To be honest, I don’t really care about AI because where I work and what I do, it requires human interaction,” she says.
Then she corrects herself. “I am not irreplaceable. I am replaceable, but with another human being, not with AI, because my job requires human touch and personal interaction with my clients.”
Her conclusion is blunt. “So AI, good luck, but I know you can’t take my job.”
Khadijah acknowledges AI’s benefits. “It’s very informative with the information,” she says. Her concern is what the technology demands from the communities that host it.
“I do think that AI is causing issues within our environment, in reference to our water system, electricity, and how that is affecting the people, the citizens, and where the data centers and things are being put.”
Data centers consume electricity, and many use water for cooling, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report. Where these facilities are built, and who absorbs the strain on local water and power systems, are questions residents can put to developers and public officials.
On jobs, Khadijah’s view is close to Josephine’s. “I also believe that AI could possibly take over some jobs, but not a majority of the jobs that constantly need human contact.” She points to medicine, where operations “need to have an actual person that needs to perform those procedures,” and to social work, “because, again, those type of positions need human contact to make it work.”
PG has been using AI “for a long time before people really, really started using it.” That experience has not produced a simple verdict.
“It’s phenomenal, it’s terrible, it’s helpful, and it’s a hindrance. It’s wildly imaginative and prosaic at the same time.”
PG sees bias in what the tools produce. “If you look and listen closely, you can see the digital disparity across communities, age groups, religions, cultures, and so forth,” PG says. “For instance, if you were to tell Claude, Copilot, Gemini, ChatGPT to produce an image of a male without giving it any additional information, most likely you’re going to get a white male.”
The National Institute of Standards and Technology also identifies harmful bias as a risk in its 2024 guidance on generative AI.
PG also sees what the speed makes possible. “What used to take days, weeks, months to do now can be done in a fraction of a fraction of time, making things possible that you just didn’t have time for.”
That convenience brings PG back to the risk of letting the tool do the thinking.
“The human spirit is an immaculate force to be reckoned with. We have the ability to choose. We have the ability to reason.”
Faith shapes that confidence. PG closes by citing Luke 8:17, about hidden things being brought into the open, and adds, “And that includes AI.”
Josephine and Khadijah place particular value on work that requires personal contact. PG emphasizes judgment and the choice to keep thinking. Two of them see real uses for AI. All three question how much responsibility people should hand over.
If You Want to Try It
Choose a familiar task using information you can share publicly. Ask an AI tool to turn event details into a short invitation, preserve every date and location, and flag missing information. Check the draft against the original. Keep private client details out of the experiment. For an image, check whether it represents the intended community. Then judge whether the result improved the work or saved time after corrections.
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Dr. Eric John Nzeribe is the Publisher of FunTimes Magazine and has a demonstrated history of working in the publishing industry since 1992. His interests include using data to understand and solve social issues, narrative stories, digital marketing, community engagement, and online/print journalism features. Dr. Nzeribe is a social media and communication professional with certificates in Digital Media for Social Impact from the University of Pennsylvania, Digital Strategies for Business: Leading the Next-Generation Enterprise from Columbia University, and a Master of Science (MS) in Publication Management from Drexel University and a Doctorate in Business Administration from Temple University.
