Reprinted with Permission of Lake Norman Currents Magazine | May 2026

Now this not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. — Winston Churchill after Rommel was defeated in North Africa.

“May you live in interesting times.”  — A similar infamous curse widely attributed to the Arab world. 

But, I wondered, is it accurate?  While interesting and perhaps and rather appropriate for the times in which we currently live.  To be sure I did a little research.  I went to my newest research assistant, Aubie.  Aubie is the name I have given to my version of ChatGPT, the popular artificial intelligence platform available for a few limited searches for free, or for unlimited searches for $8 a month. 

Aubie returned results that the “Arab Curse” was not from the Arab world at all but was the creation of a British political and diplomatic circles in the 1930s. 

Interesting. Maybe Artificial Intelligence has some things to offer us day today 

I decided to see if I could put Artificial Intelligence into some perspective related to the technological changes that my generation has experienced.  The changes in my daily life from 1954 (when I figure I started remembering  things) are usually practical but nonetheless frequently amazing. Cars did not have automatic windows. I learned to type in high school on the old ornery manual typewriter. When I left for Auburn in 1965, interstates had not been built, and it was a drudgery to travel on two-lane roads filled with pulpwood trucks from Auburn to Mobile. The first color television I saw was when I was a student at Auburn in 1967. The broadcast was the either The Sound of Music or Ponderosa. I can’t  remember which. Now televisions are flat, 80” wide and sit on the wall. There were no computers at Auburn when I arrived. I was a junior before we registered for classes by computer. Before that, I stood in line in the library hoping to get the course my advisor and I had filled out on a registration card. 

I wrote my dissertation on my first workable computer—an Apple //e. It did not have a hard drive, and I had to save my work on five-inch floppy drives that were really floppy! There were no function keys and MS Word did not exist. 

There was no such thing as electronic research for my dissertation. It all took place in the college library with microfilm and the Mobile County Courthouse. I spent an entire summer several days a week driving the 25 miles to the courthouse. I spent hundreds of dollars on the copy machine in the Courthouse’s law library. Then all that information had to be transferred manually to note cards. It was not until I was ready to actually writi the document that I convinced my wife to let me purchase an iconic Apple //e computer with two floppy drives.   

When I arrived at as principal of Benjamin Russell High School students were registered and were placed into classes, received report cards all filled out by hand. That was 1984. In a couple of years, we changed all that, but at nice cost and with lots of bugs.

I moved to an IBM computer—amazingly with a 10mb hard drive! I continued with IBM and Microsoft until 2010 when, as a professor at UNCC, we finally moved to Apple iMacs and MacBooks, and iPads. 

Today in my house, I work on an iMac, an iPad, and sometimes on my wife’s MacBook. 

We wear Apple watches, talk and sometimes work on iPhones. My 2024 Subaru Outback and most other vehicles have more sophisticated electronics than 1960’s NASA. 

What is next, I don’t know. Even now all of my devices (including Siri-control in my house) understand spoken words and can respond with answers to questions quicker than I could find them myself. I have finally, gotten over the embarrassment of talking to Siri on my phone, watch, home units, or Apple CarPlay in my Subaru. 

I am more excited than fearful about Artificial Intelligence because we have actually been using AI for good long time with only positive results. My generation has seen computer technology from the creation of the Apple //e in a garage to wearing it on our wrists. I was on the way to physical therapy this week. Halfway there I patted my pocket only to realize I didn’t have my iPhone. My anxiety level went way up. I would b late if I turned around. Had promised the wife to call her on my way home. Didn’t have a calendar to know if my next appointment would conflict with my wife since we only had one car. Damn. Everything worked out. After all what would I have done if it were 1968 when we were first married and an iPhone was not even imagined. Remember when the iPod came out and we could carry our entire collection of albums in our pocket? How could things get better than that? Well, whether they are better today is certainly debatable since with two watches, the Macs, and two iPhones my wife and I still cannot keep our family calendar straight!

To help me see where the world has come since Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were inventing the future in their garage, I asked Aubie  to give me ten examples of today’s everyday devices that currently use AI. He responded:

1. Smartphones
2. Smart speakers (like Amazon Alexa / Google Assistant / Siri)
3. Smart TVs
4. Robot vacuums
5. Smart thermostats
6. Cars
7. Smartwatches and fitness trackers
8. Home security cameras / video doorbells
9. Wireless earbuds / headphones
10. Smart appliances

There are legitimate reasons to fear AI.  If you are a not a skeptic, I suggest that you go back and watch the latest version of Battlestar Galactica. 

Artificial Intelligence has remarkable possibilities for solving problems that will keep us safe and sound on planet Earth for untold generations. However, only if we put limits on its ability to reason. To accept the positive aspects of IA without placing strict limits on its ability to reason and controlled by humans will lead to a ruinous future with mechanical aliens among us.

“AI is a powerful tool: its positives are speed, scale, and assistance; its negatives are error, bias, and overdependence. It can amplify the best of human ability—or the worst of human judgment.”

As told to me by ChatGPT when I asked the question: Can you tell me your ideas about the positives and negatives of AI? – MD