Two people, one question

Ed's why

The first time I sat down at a computer connected to the internet, I typed "sports" into the address bar and hit enter. Nothing happened. I remember thinking, this is dumb. I don't get it.

A few weeks ago I suggested to my daughter that she "ChatGPT it." She looked at me and said, "No. Never tell me to do that."

I loved that answer.

I'm in my forties, a Xennial, part of the last group that remembers life before the internet and the first to grow up alongside it. I've lived through one monumental shift already. I believe AI is the next one, and probably a bigger one.

People used to tell me, "Don't take it personally, it's just work." I've never bought that. Everything is personal. The decisions made in a boardroom show up at the dinner table. The tool your company rolls out on Monday changes what you bring home on Friday. AI is landing in both places at once, which is why we cover both.

I see it from both sides every day. At work, I've spent more than 20 years in cybersecurity, higher education, and the tech industry. I've seen how fast organizations adopt new tools and how slowly they think through the consequences. At home, I have aging parents and young kids, and I watch AI come at them from opposite directions.

I'll be honest about where I land. I think AI could end up a net negative for society, the way social media has been for a generation of kids. I've read The Anxious Generation, and I don't want us to repeat those mistakes on a larger scale. Part of me hopes the analog movement grows.

But I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I use the calculator on my phone without guilt. Tools aren't good or bad. What we do with them is. Right now, almost nobody is keeping score.

Does it help my parents, does it help me, does it help my kids, and will it help my grandkids?

So that's what Jeremiah and I are doing. Every story we cover gets that one test. That goes for AI at work as much as AI at home. If it makes life better across those four generations, it's good. If it trades their future for someone's quarterly earnings, we'll say so.

I'm starting my doctorate in education, studying how institutions adapt to AI. This site is where I'll do that work in public.

Ed

Jeremiah's why

I've taken companies from the garage to acquisition more than once, across a wide range of industries. I've built the pitch decks. I know where the asterisks go, and I know how rarely anyone comes back a year later to check whether the product actually had the impact the slide promised.

That's the gap I want to close.

I see AI from both sides. As a seller, I've watched buyers sign on promises nobody checks later. As a builder, I've used it to improve the cheese shop I co-own in Asheville. And through the Carolina Cyber Network and CallEmme Digital Safety, I see who it reaches: community college students it can lift, and neighbors it can scam.

Ed and I don't land in the same place, and that's the point. I'm more hopeful than he is. I think AI will do more good than harm, but only if someone keeps the receipts. Good intentions aren't results. A press release isn't evidence.

Good intentions aren't results. A press release isn't evidence.

At home, I think about my three kids, and I want them to dream big. The art of the possible is more within reach than ever, whether it's a patient, a farmer or a first-generation student on the receiving end. So is the damage, and it spreads faster than ever too. I want them to see both, and I want the people building these tools to know someone is checking.

So I'll do what I've always done: ask what it costs, what it delivers, and who it actually helps. Then we publish the score, good or bad.

Jeremiah