Even those living in the remotest rural areas know that AI isn’t just a number for a guy you have on speed dial in the spring. AI (artificial intelligence) is very much a part of our everyday lives. Think you don’t use AI? Did you check the weather forecast on your phone today? Book your holiday flights and hotels online? Did you check Google maps before you set off for a drive? If you answered yes to even one of these you have used AI.

Everytime you google something, unless you have changed the settings, the answers will be generated by AI. It draws answers from numerous sources but importantly it doesn’t know if what it generates is correct. This is an important aspect of AI that we need to remember.

I know many who use it to translate text to another language. I’ve tried it with Irish and I’d say it’s accurate about 80% of the time. Is that good enough?

How we use the information it gives us is crucial. The weather app will tell us we are going to get 4cm of rain overnight. But we need to use our knowledge and experience to decide how long we have to wait the next day to turn or bale the hay. We have to use our own local knowledge to decide to move cows from the long field because we know it holds water. I see AI as a starting point rather than determining a definitive course of action.

AI can be very useful for a small business. It can draft business plans, give pretty good content for grant applications and write social media posts. It plays an important role in remote working and tools such as speech-to-text have important benefits for accessibility.

Despite these positives, there are also many concerns. The creative sector has been critical of its use for some time. AI can be used to create designs, music, art. But do we know the difference between human design and AI design? Do we care?

A friend recently told me she got a free knitting pattern from AI when previously she had to pay to download it. Is the fact that we are getting something free the bottom line for us? But is it free?

Everytime you google something, unless you have changed the settings, the answers will be generated by AI. It draws answers from numerous sources but importantly it doesn’t know if what it generates is correct. This is an important aspect of AI that we need to remember

Many authors, playwrights and song writers worry about AI generated scripts. Could AI write this column? Probably, but trust me it wouldn’t question its own usefulness as I am now. It wouldn’t understand the madness of following Mayo football as I wrote about recently and it certainly wouldn’t know the feelings I have shared here both in sad and happy times.

There are so many positives and negatives in this discussion. AI can help farmers interpret weather, soil and satellite data, monitor livestock, identify disease and improve the use of fertiliser and other inputs. This could all result in using fewer inputs and less environmental damage. Great, right? But what is the environmental impact of the very source of this information with its data centers, cooling systems, infrastructure etc? As the saying goes there is no such thing as a free lunch.

After the environment I think one of the biggest concerns is its impact on critical thinking. This is one that is actually completely within our control. Do we fully accept whatever information it gives us is correct? Do we question where the information was gathered from? Is there another interpretation? If the computer says yes do we take that as gospel? If we ask it to summarise a complicated article, we are giving up our own ability to decide what aspects of the article are relevant and important.

An interesting exercise to undertake is to ask AI about yourself and see what information it can gather on you. Who is Margaret Leahy? What did it get right? What did it get wrong? What sources did it use to gather the information? It won’t get the essence of you but it might surprise you in either its accuracy or its inaccuracy.

Writing this has raised many questions and I don’t have the answers. But I am questioning how I use it. Maybe that’s the biggest question. Is the greatest danger of AI not that it thinks for us but that we stop thinking for ourselves?