Admit what you cannot control
(Learning to let go and accept being powerless)
I recently saw the film The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist because I’m seeing artificial intelligence (AI) change the world around me. No longer are major advances in AI years away—they’re happening now.
And that’s frightening.
I’m seeing my job change because of AI, seen people being laid off because of it, but it’s also helped me immensely with research and tasks.
If you’re a curious person and are interested in technology, I suggest you go see the documentary or rent it when it becomes available on the various streaming platforms.
But what does a movie about AI have to do with admitting what you cannot control?
Let me tell you a story.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s. For me, I had a constant fear that the USA and the Soviet Union were going to have an all-out nuclear war.
The TV show The Day After traumatized me because we could see what happened to the survivors after a major nuclear exchange.
For months after seeing the TV show, I kept extra gallons of water under my bed because I wanted to be prepared for when the war started.
As a young teenager, I had no control over whether major superpowers began a nuclear war.
I had to learn to let go.
That didn’t mean I didn’t care. I’ve aligned myself toward anti-war causes over the decades.
But I came to a point where I needed to let go of what I couldn’t control.
Similarly, in watching The AI Doc, there’s a moment in the movie where the director is dealing with a big decision he needs to make.
He can either continue to worry and be anxious, or he can learn to let go of what he can’t control.
AI is here, no matter if we look away, ignore it, or even choose not to use it.
Each of us will need to decide on how we will use AI (or not).
Is it true that AI will destroy humanity?
Yes, that’s a possibility.
What can we do about it?
Work together as a people and push back on our elected officials, asking them for regulation before it’s too late.
We still have to accept a basic fact: we can’t control some things.
We can’t make other people do what we want them to do.
All we can do is learn how to create a boundary between what we have control over (our own actions) and what we don’t (the actions of others).
Replace AI or nuclear war with a thousand other things, and it’s the same logic.
Or drill down into your personal life:
We can’t force a young adult child to do what we want them t do.
We can’t make a spouse act always the way we want.
We can’t save people or “fix” them.
We can only take care of ourselves.
There is often the tendency to think in black or white thinking:
Things are either all bad or all good.
Often, there’s a lot of gray in the world.
And that’s okay.
Learn what your boundaries are, test them, understand them, and strengthen them.
For those of you who are paying subscribers to my Substack, I’m sharing with you an extra special treat.
Enjoy!