This is the most sensible and balanced piece I've read on AI.

Here's something from my forthcoming book on Yoga and AI —

Yoga and AI share a common attribute—they are both barely understood by lay persons, and much of their knowledge has been obscured by vested interests. The way Yoga is understood by most is best expressed as the Indian parable of the Six Blind Men and the Elephant.

A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.

In one version, a sighted man enters the parable and describes the entire elephant from various perspectives. The blind men learn that they were all partially correct and partially wrong.

AI is the new elephant in the room, and being similarly afflicted is making its way into nearly every social conversation. Slicing and dicing, one camp speaks of it as existential threat and destroyer of jobs while another sees AI as the next step in the evolution of humanity. Fast and frenzied arguments around AI being smarter than humans, malicious and whatnot. Other exponential technologies are on their own trajectory, leaving most people dazed and confused. An already unintelligible world is becoming even more difficult for people to relate to and to navigate. Yet all of this ignores deeper and more fundamental issues —

Has our quest for more led to less understanding of ourselves? Is it lack of understanding of ourselves that is having us make more out of what is, than there is? Are we being driven by fear of the unknown when it comes to AI?