PART IV — Looking Ahead
Chapter 22
What Will You Do With It?
From What AI Can Do to What We Can Do
When I began using ChatGPT, I was curious about what AI could answer.
Over time, my question changed.
I became less interested in simply finding out what AI could do and more interested in what I could do with it.
That shift may become more significant as AI becomes capable of doing more.
The question isn't just what the technology can produce.
What will you choose to do with those possibilities?
AI Creates Possibilities. We Supply the Purpose.
AI can explain, research, compare, write, create, organize, and help turn an idea into something usable.
The list will keep growing.
But a list of capabilities isn't a plan for a life.
Someone still has to decide what is worth pursuing.
That distinction becomes more meaningful as AI takes on more of the mechanical work. If AI can produce a first draft, comparison, image, piece of code, or plan, we have more room to decide what we actually want to make, learn, solve, or experience.
AI can provide the possibility. We provide the reason.
The Fishing Pond
One of my favorite examples is a small game I created for my granddaughter.
The project began with an idea. AI helped turn that idea into something she could actually use.
The interesting part wasn't simply that AI could produce code.
It was that the conversation made it easier to move from “I have an idea” to “I can make something.”
The technology supplied capabilities I didn't have to build from scratch.
I supplied the reason for building it.
That distinction matters far beyond a game.
The Book Itself Became an AI Project
There is an even larger example sitting in front of you.
This book began with an interest in understanding AI. It gradually became a project involving research, writing, revision, organization, questions, experiments, and decisions.
AI has helped with many of the mechanical parts of that work.
But the project is still mine.
I decide what the book is about. I decide which experiences belong. I decide what I believe, what I want to question, and what I want the reader to take away.
AI helped make the project possible.
It did not decide that the project mattered.
Curiosity Is Part of the Point
I've been curious about technology for a long time.
A six-transistor radio. An Apple IIc. Personal computers. The 1964 World's Fair. The Bell Telephone exhibit at Disneyland. The Dick Tracy wristwatch that once seemed like science fiction.
Each produced the same basic question:
What might be possible?
AI brings that question back in a new form.
Where will it go?
What will it make possible?
What will become easier?
And perhaps the most interesting question:
What will we choose to do with it?
Possibility Doesn't Mean You Have to Use It
There is a temptation with every new technology to look for something else it can do.
But more capability doesn't mean every capability belongs in your life.
Some things are better done yourself.
Some experiences are valuable precisely because you are the one doing them.
AI can help with a project without becoming the project manager.
It can help you create without becoming the creator.
It can save time without deciding what that time should mean.
The goal isn't to find a way to put AI into everything.
The goal is to discover where AI can help you do something that matters to you.
What You'll Discover
The book goes further into:
how AI can turn an idea into a starting point;
how a conversation with AI can become a real project;
what the Fishing Pond experience taught me about AI as a creative collaborator;
how this book itself became an example of long-running AI-assisted work;
why human purpose remains central even as AI capabilities grow;
how curiosity can become a useful way of approaching new technology;
and why some of the best uses of AI may have little to do with productivity.
The larger lesson is simple:
AI can expand what is possible. You still decide what is worth doing.
Try It Yourself
Think about something you've wanted to do but haven't started.
It might be a small project, something you want to learn, something you want to create, or a problem you've been putting off.
Consider what part of getting started AI might be able to help with.
Then pay attention to something just as important:
What do you want to do yourself?
That distinction may tell you more about how you want to use AI than a list of features ever could.
Why Read the Book?
Chapter 22 brings together many of the ideas developed throughout Understanding AI.
The earlier chapters show how to work with AI.
This chapter asks what happens when you begin using those abilities to pursue something of your own.
The book goes further into projects, creative collaboration, experimentation, revision, curiosity, and the choices that remain yours.
The future of AI will be shaped by what the technology can do.
The future of our lives with AI will be shaped by what we choose to do with it.