The first time I used generative artificial intelligence, I felt like a kid at an amateur magic show. Is the card really floating in midair? The parents at this kind of show, of course, are less dumbstruck than the kids: The card is not floating but instead swinging on some string. It’s not magic. Not even a particularly good illusion. You simply have to know where to look.

The same goes for generative artificial intelligence. Once you know where to look, even the most powerful AI stops looking like magic. No string here — instead, look at the AI’s training data.

Training data is the information used to construct an AI. After programmers feed an AI a massive diet of training data, the AI learns to identify patterns in it and then generates output. The more data you feed an AI, the more subtle the patterns it can recognize and generate. That’s why ChatGPT can churn out travel itineraries, B-level college essays and social media marketing campaigns.

In all the hubbub around AI, it can be tempting to think that AI will eclipse us. That it will expand infinitely, until it can do all that a college-educated human can do — and more. That it will take over not only the jobs of data crunchers and coders and copy editors, but also poets and artists and high-level managers.

We are probably right to worry about some of our jobs. But many predictions about AI are overblown. The technology faces crucial limitations.

First limitation

AI is limited by the data on which it is trained. Even if you were to train an AI on the entire internet, the AI would miss out on a lot: thoughts jotted down on a napkin; late-night conversations with a college roommate; that week in 2018 you spent camping in the Rockies; and the feeling of seeing your grandma after a long time apart. None of that is part of the AI’s world.

Second limitation

AI lacks critical thinking. Can an image-generating AI churn out several versions of a cat in a fedora painted in the style of Rembrandt? Yup. But can an AI discern which of the paintings is better than the others? No.

Yes, AI can generate incredible content. But it cannot evaluate the content it creates. At least not in the way you and I can.

There’s a mistake many new AI users make. They assume it can simply replace entire swaths of human expertise — such as creating art, writing code or penning essays. This is a misguided assumption. Will AI streamline tasks and eliminate some jobs? Likely, yes. Yet the most effective users of AI are those who are already experts in the relevant task.

In other words, AI can write code, craft text and generate images, but it is most effective if you already know what you are doing. For example, I have friends who write code, and they tell me that the code AI writes is good but needs to be consolidated and cleaned up by a human.

Likewise, as a writer, I believe that AI can be a helpful tool. It can generate ideas, word choices and metaphors. But for an undergraduate churning out a last-minute essay, AI will be far less useful. The essay won’t come together without someone to form it.

Tip of the iceberg

Since I started writing about AI, I get asked a lot about the Terminator. Are cyborgs going to take over? No. Yet we should still worry about AI. It is poised to take over large swaths of human activity and, in doing so, erode our individual and shared humanity.

The truth is that generative AI is only the tip of the iceberg. The influence and potential dangers of the AI revolution go far beyond the flashy, generative versions.

For example, AI has been making a splash in health care. Applications can discern subtle differences in radiology scans and can be used to triage patients and complete physician’s notes. They can be used to craft care plans for patients upon discharge. Used correctly, AI could deliver more effective health care. But used improperly, AI-powered health care could exacerbate problems in delivery, rob medicine of the human element and reduce our view of a person to a collection of data.

AI is also in Big Retail. You’ve likely bought a book on the recommendation of Amazon’s algorithm, viewed videos based on YouTube’s suggestions and clicked on an ad for a product you never would have looked up on your own. In all these instances, AI predicts your preferences. Scarier still, the AI helps shape your preferences in the first place, creating a desire and then immediately offering the opportunity to satisfy it. In each of these interactions, we lose a sliver of our humanity. We cede our desires to the algorithms. We become more materialistic and less free.

We become, in a word, less human.

AI does, indeed, threaten our humanity. Not in the form of a cyborg but with the promise of a funny YouTube video or a new pair of jeans.

Reflect carefully, now, on values and our humanity

In the early days of the internet, when it was slow-moving and quirky, we couldn’t have imagined smartphones, streaming platforms and online banking becoming part of our daily lives.

Similarly, AI is finding its legs. Like the internet, AI is poised to infiltrate our lives in myriad and unexpected ways. We cannot predict precisely how or where AI will take up residence in 50 years.

How to prepare for this kind of infiltration? By reflecting carefully on AI now. By identifying those areas of lives we want to retain as human spaces and those we are comfortable ceding to the AI algorithms. By reflecting carefully on our values, and what it means to be human in the first place.

AI is here to stay. We need to ensure that humanity as we know it is here to stay as well.

Joseph Vukov is a philosophy professor and associate director of the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola University Chicago. He is also author of the new book”Staying Human in an Era of Artificial Intelligence.” He wrote this column for the Chicago Tribune.

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Today is Friday, Aug. 2, the 215th day of 2024. There are 151 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On August 2, 1921, a jury in Chicago acquitted several former members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team and two others of conspiring to defraud the public in the notorious “Black Sox” scandal (though they would be banned from Major League Baseball for life by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis).

Also on this date:

In 1776, members of the Second Continental Congress began attaching their signatures to the Declaration of Independence.

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Today in History: July 31, Phelps sets Olympic medal record

Today in History: July 30, Jenner takes gold in Montreal

Today in History: July 29, USS Forrestal accident

Today in History: July 28, US Army airplane crashes into Empire State Building

In 1790, the first United States Census was conducted under the supervision of Thomas Jefferson; a total of 3,929,214 U.S. residents were counted.

In 1873, inventor Andrew S. Hallidie (HAH’-lih-day) successfully tested a cable car he had designed for the city of San Francisco.

In 1876, frontiersman “Wild Bill” Hickok was shot and killed while playing poker at a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, by Jack McCall, who was later hanged.

On Aug. 2, 1923, the 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding, died in San Francisco; Vice President Calvin Coolidge became president.

In 1934, German President Paul von Hindenburg died, paving the way for Adolf Hitler’s complete takeover.

In 1939, Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program.

In 1945, President Harry S. Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and Britain’s new prime minister, Clement Attlee, concluded the Potsdam conference.

In 1974, former White House counsel John W. Dean III was sentenced to one to four years in prison for obstruction of justice in the Watergate cover-up. (Dean ended up serving four months.)

In 1985, 137 people were killed when Delta Air Lines Flight 191, a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, crashed while attempting to land at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate. (The Iraqis were later driven out by the U.S. in Operation Desert Storm.)

In 2018, Pope Francis decreed that the death penalty is “inadmissible” under all circumstances and the Catholic Church should campaign to abolish it.

Today’s Birthdays:

Rock musician Garth Hudson (The Band) is 87.
Author Isabel Allende is 82.
Singer Kathy Lennon (The Lennon Sisters) is 81.
Actor Butch Patrick (TV: “The Munsters”) is 71.
Rock music producer/drummer Butch Vig is 69.
Actor Mary-Louise Parker is 60.
Writer-actor-director Kevin Smith is 54.
Actor Sam Worthington is 48.
Actor Edward Furlong is 47.
TV meteorologist Dylan Dreyer (TV: “Today”) is 43.
Actor Lily Gladstone is 38.
WNBA point guard Skylar Diggins-Smith is 34.
Singer Charli XCX is 32.
Olympic swimming gold medalist Simone Manuel is 28.

Jair Camargo created runs with his swing and his batting eye, driving in four in the St. Paul Saints’ 8-2 win over the Iowa Cubs on Thursday night at Principal Park in Des Moines.

Camargo broke open a tight game with a three-run home run off I-Cubs starter Brandon Birdsell in the sixth inning, and he drew a bases-loaded walk in the seventh. He finished 1 for 3 with four RBIs.

Birdsell and Saints starter Adam Plutko were locked in a pitcher’s duel through the first five innings. Birdsell allowed a first-inning run aided by a fielding error but then retired 11 straight batters before Rylan Bannon hit a double off him in the fifth. He escaped a bases-loaded jam in that inning by striking out DaShawn Keirsey Jr. for the final out.

In the sixth, Edouard Julien led off with a single, and Yunior Severino reached on a fielder’s choice that included a fielding error by second baseman Jake Hager allowing Julien to reach third base. Camargo followed with his ninth homer of the season to give the Saints a 4-0 lead.

Plutko continued his recent stretch of strong performances. He shut out the I-Cubs for the first six innings before giving up two in the seventh. He allowed two runs on two hits with three walks and four strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings, improving to 6-1 since joining the team in late May. He has won four of his last five starts, allowing nine runs over 28 2/3 innings in that span.

Keirsey went 3 for 5 with three runs, and Julien was 2 for 4.

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Ramsey County is reviewing the fees it charges residents for emergency mental health services after a local television news report about the practice sparked criticism from advocacy organizations.

KMSP-TV on Sunday reported that people who called the county’s crisis help line during mental health emergencies were later billed for the services they received, while neighboring Dakota, Washington and Hennepin counties provide the same services at no cost to residents.

The report said the county charged more than $1.1 million in the past three years for its mobile crisis intervention service, which dispatches a response team to treat residents experiencing a mental health emergency.

Fees

According to a county spokesman, the department of social services charges $62.50 for every 15 minutes that a team spends assessing a patient, plus $1 per minute of travel time.

“These fees are billed to insurance providers whenever possible, otherwise a variety of options are offered to the patient including a sliding fee schedule or payment plan,” county officials said in a statement published Tuesday.

Mental health advocates expressed “deep disappointment” over the revelations in the KMSP report.

In a joint statement released Thursday, Mental Health Minnesota and the Minnesota chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness said they “are extremely concerned to learn that Ramsey County is charging individuals for using mental health crisis services” and called on the county to end the practice.

Ramsey County officials respond

Ramsey County officials say they were taking seriously the feedback shared by members of the community following KSMP’s report.

“Based on this feedback, we are reviewing our mental health crisis fees,” Ramsey County spokesman Casper Hill said in an email Thursday evening. “Our objective is to gather comprehensive data, establish best practices and understand how other counties that offer similar services address this matter. The review will be provided to the board to determine next steps as any changes to the current fee structure require a board action.”

Ramsey County currently has no plans to change how it bills for emergency mental health services.

“The county will continue to bill health insurance providers and only bill individuals when there is no health care coverage or there are copays and deductibles,” Hill said.

Issues raised in report

Among the issues raised in the KMSP-TV report was the fact that the charges for emergency mental health services were not disclosed on the county’s crisis intervention webpage, nor were they listed on its most recent fee schedule.

Ramsey County said Tuesday that it would post “information to our website clarifying the fee and payment options for crisis services” and add the same information to the script used by staffers on its the mental health crisis phone line.

KSMP-TV also noted that the county initially told its reporter that federal law and state funding requirements compelled it to charge residents for the services in question. County officials later acknowledged that both of these statements were false.

“We would like to apologize directly to our constituents for initially providing the incorrect data and any confusion or harm it caused,” the county statement said.

A man who was billed $342 by the county last year for crisis mental health services told KMSP that he worries the charges will discourage people from seeking the care they need.

“We believe it is critical that this life saving service is available to all residents regardless of income,” Ramsey County officials said Tuesday. “We will continue to look at ways to improve our mental health and crisis response service.”

For help

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, you can call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988. More information is available at 988lifeline.org and Save.org.

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