What is the upside to AI for humanity?
I've been wondering what do we gain from the rampant use of AI in most of our daily lives, aside from making productivity, building a business faster. Here are some of the things I have noticed that I feel will destroy humanity (a little dramatic probably):
- Human connection - We used to talk to our friends and ask for advice about issues we might be having. This would help build bonds with others. Now we talk to chatgpt which has slowly become some people's therapist, best friend and partner.
- Work Life - I have to manage a group of people and in my line of work I leave feedback for their work. The workers can then reply to my feedback via email or whatever means. The amount of AI replies have grown exponentially. I am mostly just talking to an AI bot instead of a human. I blame our executives for pushing AI down our throats, but we should still be able to speak to each other without the use of AI.
- Social Media - What once was a place where people posted about their fake lives has become a sea of AI advertisements, people, and information. The credibility of anything online has substantially degraded.
- School - Degrees will become obsolete. I can go and get my bachelor's or master's and just have AI do all of my work for me. I'll be a top student. How is this going to work out for us?
- Marriages/Relationships - Why get married when your AI chatbot speaks to you exactly how you want? You can train it to be the perfect man/woman. When they finally figure out how to make the sex bots to be very close to humans, society is cooked. This is probably (excuse my ignorance) more of an issue for the men who will probably prefer a sex bot that is their perfect woman at home.
My question is, what can we realistically do to prevent humanity from going down a path were we are no longer connecting with each other meaningfully and are able to still have productive lives? What is the upside to AI? Is losing our humanity worth the productivity boost? I am not writing this to fear monger, I honestly want to know if there is hope for us. I want to be positive about AI, I am just having a hard time with figuring that out.
Edit: I am aware of the benefits in the medical field and engineering in general. Those are great upsides.