My Personal Stance on AI

The other day I received an email from one of our customers asking for some care tips regarding the Halloween Hissing Cockroaches she purchased from our website. I answered her email while eating lunch not long after she messaged, giving her some nuggets of information off the top of my head based on my own personal experience raising and breeding them. She replied back immediately, and said, "Wow, thank you for the quick response! Is this AI or am I talking to a real human?". I was taken aback. I gave here the best of my years of experience breeding hissers bundled up into a few sentences of rich information, and I was mistaken for AI! I replied back again letting her know I'm Justin, a real human, the owner of Exo-Morphs, and that I will never have AI handle customer service or any other aspect of this business.

I graduated college with a Bachelor's Degree in Graphic Design. We're witnessing Graphic Designers, artists, programmers, web designers etc. being among the first group of professions replaced by AI, and it's frightening. I appreciate the arts, design, personal expression, and the human element, and I'm concerned for the future of humanity especially when it comes to the destruction of the workforce with no plans in place to mend any of the future issues caused by the implementation of AI across all industries.

I, and anyone who works here at Exo-Morphs, will never use AI for anything you find on our website, social media, packaging, customer service, etc. All of our content is hand written, our images are taken by a real photographer, our graphics are created by a real designer, and our customer service issues are handled in-house. What we do here at Exo-Morphs is as hands on and human as it gets. We support our friends and family, and do not want to see anyone out of a job because some giant corporation found a way to replace them with a hard drive.

While I believe there is a place for AI in science, research & development, space exploration, etc., I also dread living in a dystopian society ruled by AI. I will personally do my best to make sure our business is fully operated by living, breathing human beings for as long as physically possible. 

I felt the need to comment on this given the current environment and the thoughts I've been having about AI lately and I hope whoever reads this can appreciate my take on the topic. 

Sincerely,

Justin Lengel | Owner, Exo-Morphs LLC