There is a fairytale I learned in grade school that encapsulates how AI can be misused.
Once upon a time, there was a schoolboy that hated his classwork and simply could not wait to get to recess. He hated his chores, he hated his homework, and if an activity was unpleasant, he wanted nothing to do with it. One day, on his way home from school, the schoolboy encountered a witch that offered him a crystal ball. "In this crystal ball is a thread that contains the whole spool of your life," declared the witch, "merely pull on the silver thread and you will skip past whatever you are doing to the next event."
The schoolboy was elated; when his monotone professor began droning on in lecture he would pull at the thread and suddenly the lecture was over - he was off to recess! The schoolboy went to do his homework, he'd pull the thread, the homework was done, and he would go off to play in the marshes beside his home. When he was asked to milk the cows, a pull of the thread and the cows were all milked and he could head in for supper.
At first, things seemed swimmingly beautiful. The boy got through his days in absolute bliss. But eventually, he'd find that he had to use the thread even when the lessons were interesting because he did not understand what the teacher was saying. He'd want to do his homework because the subject was fascinating but did not have the first clue how to start since he had skipped the previous lessons. He had become so lax that he could not even milk the cows. He kept tugging the thread from the crystal ball - skipping more and more of his life.
Eventually he ended up married to a woman he did not know the name of, in a job he did not know how to do, with children he did not know how to take care of. He found himself pulling the thread every other moment, not to skip to pleasures but to avoid agony. At the end of the man's life the witch came with a cackle, "Now come with me precious one, for they that hate the feeling of growth are doomed to decay!" and the witch flew off with the man's soul.
There are many morals to this fairytale, but one of the chief among them is this - those that will not put in the effort to become everything they could become less than they were at the start. Whenever we feel the temptation to use AI it is worth bearing this fairytale in mind; are we using this tool to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of growth?
