Be the AI skeptic who uses AI

Hey friend. A new poll this week said most Americans think AI is moving too fast and the usual chorus came right behind it telling them to get on board. There’s an important balance right now between going all in on AI and staying clear of it.

Here is what I posted on LinkedIn that hit a nerve. The hundreds of comments told me this question is sitting right under the surface for a lot of you.

Be the AI skeptic who uses AI. This can be very powerful right now.

I advocate holding both of these tensions: stay wary about who profits and what gets overrun AND get capable enough to judge it for yourself. A new Axios poll shows 70%+ of Americans think AI is moving too fast. Negative views have nearly doubled in three years. Only 18% of young people feel optimistic about it. The worried majority has valid worries: whose jobs disappear, who pays the power bills, who keeps the winnings. And when you use AI yourself, you start asking further important questions: who trained it, what it was built to do, who profits if you rely on it. That's how skepticism becomes useful.

After 25 years in tech, I've watched enough hype cycles to know the people who got burned weren't necessarily the skeptics. They were the ones who didn't use their own judgment enough and just went with the flow. Your instinct to ask "wait, who benefits from this?" is the sharpest thing you bring to this conversation. The person who uses AI and still asks the hard questions is rarer than you think. Let's all be that person.

The rarest skill belongs to the person who actually uses the tool and still asks the hard questions.

AARP's latest workforce report shows 52% of workers over 50 now feel knowledgeable about AI, up from 39% a year ago. The share listing AI as a skill grew 25% in five years, nearly double the rate of younger workers. The catch: only 35% say their employer is actually training them on it.

Why you should care: this is the gap that creates the opening. If your company is not teaching you, you can quietly out-learn the room on your own time. The data says you are not as far behind as anyone wants you to feel. Read more

With dozens of countries voting this year, OpenAI announced an election push: verified-info access inside ChatGPT, plus more transparency around AI generated political content and support for cyber defenders. It will not stop every fake, but it is the first organized response from one of the big players.

Why you should care: deepfake political ads and AI generated robocalls hit voters over 50 the hardest. Knowing what guardrails actually exist is part of voting preparedness this year. Read more

A new HealthEdge survey shows 94% of health insurers and providers now use AI, while only 21% of members do. That gap shapes claims decisions and care navigation more than most patients realize.

Why you should care: you do not have to match their tools to stay current. Use AI to prep for your next appointment, to read your benefits language or to push back on a denial. Read more

A study of more than 100,000 people found today's generative AI systems beat the average score on standardized divergent-thinking tests. Brings up a debate about what "creative" even means anymore.

Why you should care: average is not the bar that matters for you. The interesting question is what your specific lived experience adds that no model has seen. That is the part of creativity AI cannot fake.