As a visual artist, I think often about things I have seen that impressed me. Movies, paintings, even graffiti occasionally catch my eye and thrill my imagination.
If you have ever seen Pixar’s Wall-E, you might understand my excitement over computer animation and how alive it can be, how expressive and fun.
If you have not seen it, our hero WALL-E is a quirky little trash-compacting robot left on Earth to clean up an overwhelming toxic mess while humans travel the stars in luxury star cruisers, waiting for the robots to finish the job so they can come home. WALL-E spends his days cleaning and finding curiosities the humans left behind, which he collects.
WALL-E’s only friend on Earth is an adorable little cockroach.
Then something unexpected happens. Another, stylish, sophisticated robot appears, trying to blast WALL-E, and without giving away any details, let’s just say a fantastic chase ensues. At the end of that chase, WALL winds up with the humans on one of the star cruisers. The very, very fat humans. ALL of them.
Why are they so fat? Every possible comfort has been given to them. They do not even need to walk, since they have flying chairs with computer monitors and wifi built in. All they do all day is recline on their flying chairs and watch shows while surfing the internet. And eat. And eat. And eat.
As a result, these humans no longer can stand easily, or walk. You see, when everything was done for them, they only had to decide what show to watch and what food to enjoy. But when disaster happens, it becomes very, very clear how terrible that idea is. The people are knocked from their chairs and have to try to get up and move, but they are no longer capable of any actual movement except lifting food to their mouths. They cannot rescue themselves.
We face a similar, growing problem today. With the explosion of A.I. in nearly every app, and available for free or cheap, we face a future where we could almost literally ask A.I. to do anything for us, which is done to our satisfaction. Do you need your paper written for you? No problem, ChatGPT to the rescue. Do you want to impress a girl, have an app write a poem for her? (Don’t forget to keep that a secret, because when she discovers it was an A.I., not your creative genius that made that…haram. Haram ktir!)
Using A.I. to create a funny meme makes sense. It is fun, easy, and even cool. Using it to shortchange your learning experiences––how to study, how to write, how to paint…this is a fast track to the flying chair.
I recently saw a quote that read, “I want A.I. to do my laundry and my dishes so that I can do my writing and art. Not for A.I. to do my writing and art, so I can do the laundry and the dishes.”
I think this is the key to A.I. Use it to help you reach higher, but not at the risk of being unable to stand at all. You will not regret learning to do things the normal way, or even the difficult way, but you will eventually regret taking a far too easy path. Don’t be the fat man in the chair.
