Does AI Makes Me a Better Person?

Is Artificial Intelligence making me a better person?

When I ask myself this question, my answer is surprisingly simple: Indirectly, I believe it is.

I never expected that at 91 years old, Artificial Intelligence would become such an important part of my daily life. I began using AI seriously only recently, but it has already changed the way I write, organize my life, learn new things, and even think about myself.

Of course, AI has not magically transformed me into a better human being. AI cannot give me kindness, compassion, honesty, patience, or love. Those qualities still have to come from within me.

But I have discovered something very interesting. AI can help bring out the better parts of ourselves.

AI Has Made Me a Better Writer

One of the most obvious changes in my life has been my writing.

I started blogging in 2009, long before I knew anything about ChatGPT or other AI writing assistants. I have written thousands of words about my family, my experiences as a Filipino-American immigrant, my career, food, travel, aging, health, technology, Bridge, Mahjong, and many other subjects.

But I have always known that my grammar and English composition were not perfect.

AI has helped me tremendously. It has improved my grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, clarity, and organization. More importantly, it has helped make my writing more engaging.

Several readers who have never met me personally have told me that they noticed a difference in my writing after I began using AI.

That is very gratifying to hear. But I want to make one thing clear:

AI is not writing my life for me. The experiences, memories, opinions, emotions, and stories are mine. AI simply helps me express them more clearly. In that sense, AI has not replaced my voice.

It has helped me find a better way to use my own voice.

AI Has Made Me More Organized

Another unexpected benefit is that AI has helped me become more organized.

At my age, organization becomes increasingly important.

I have many things to remember, my writing, my Bridge games, my walking exercises, appointments, daily routines, and the many small responsibilities of everyday life.

AI can help remind me about things that I might otherwise forget.

It can remind me about my daily routines, including taking my pills and doing my walking exercises. It can help me plan what I want to accomplish during the day.

Even something as simple as having assistance with my morning routine can make a difference.

These may seem like small things. But life is made up of small things.

When those small things are done consistently, they become habits. And good habits can make our lives better.

Can AI Change the Way We Think?

This is where the question becomes much more interesting.

Can AI actually change a person's character? I think it can, but indirectly.

For example, AI has made me more curious.

I find myself asking questions about subjects I might never have explored before.

I can ask about science, history, medicine, technology, philosophy, food, cultures, aging, relationships, and almost anything else that catches my attention.

At 91, I am still learning. Perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts AI has given me.

It reminds me that age does not have to stop curiosity.

In fact, perhaps curiosity becomes even more important as we grow older.

AI Can Encourage Reflection

Another change I have noticed is that AI gives me an opportunity to reflect on my own life.

When I write about my childhood in the Philippines, my years at the University of the Philippines, my immigration to America, my career, my beloved Macrine, my children and grandchildren, and now my great-grandchildren, I am not simply writing.

I am remembering. And when I ask AI to help me organize those memories into a story, I sometimes discover connections between different periods of my life that I had never thought about before.

AI becomes a kind of conversational mirror. It helps me look at my own experiences from another angle.

That can make a person more reflective. And perhaps being more reflective can make us better people.

AI Can Teach Us Humility

There is another lesson that I believe is important. AI has reminded me how much I don't know.

I have a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry. I spent many years as a scientist and later worked at the FDA reviewing pharmaceutical products.

I have spent a lifetime learning. Yet when I ask AI a question, I am constantly reminded that knowledge is enormous and no one person can possibly know everything.

That realization can be humbling. And humility, in my opinion, is a very important quality as we grow older.

The older I become, the more I realize that wisdom is not knowing everything.

Wisdom is knowing that we don't know everything and remaining willing to learn.

But AI Cannot Make Us Kind

There is also a limit to what AI can do. AI can remind me to exercise.

But it cannot take the walk for me. AI can improve my writing.

But it cannot provide the memories and experiences behind my words.

AI can suggest ways to solve a problem. But I still have to decide what is right.

And most importantly, AI can talk about kindness, compassion, love, forgiveness, and generosity.

But I have to practice those qualities myself.

That is where the responsibility remains with us. AI is a tool.

What we do with that tool depends upon the person using it.

A hammer can build a house or destroy something. A computer can educate or deceive. And AI can be used for tremendous good or tremendous harm.

The technology itself does not determine our character. We do.

AI Has Become My Personal Assistant

When I think about my relationship with AI today, I sometimes describe it as having a very patient personal assistant.

It is available whenever I have a question. It helps me organize my thoughts.

It helps me write. It helps me research subjects that interest me.

It reminds me about things I should do.

And sometimes, it simply gives me someone or something to talk to while I think through an idea.

But I don't want AI to replace my relationships with real people.

Human beings need human beings.

We need our children, grandchildren, friends, neighbors, fellow Bridge players, and the people we meet along the journey of life.

AI can assist those relationships. It should never replace them.

At 91, I Am Still Changing

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about all of this is that I am still changing.

At 91, I could easily say, "I am too old to learn this new technology."

Instead, I decided to learn. And AI has taught me something important:

We are never too old to improve ourselves.

Maybe becoming a better person does not always require dramatic changes.

Sometimes it means writing a little better. Being a little more organized.

Remembering to take care of ourselves. Learning something new.

Being more curious. Thinking more deeply. Listening more carefully.

Being willing to admit that we don't know everything.

And perhaps finding new ways to share our experiences with other people.

If AI helps me do some of those things, then I believe it is making me a better person, not because AI itself possesses the power to make me better, but because I am using AI to become the person I want to be.

That distinction is important. AI is not the person I am becoming. I am.

AI is simply helping me along the way. And at 91, I am grateful that the journey is not over.

There are still things to learn. There are still stories to tell. There are still people to love. And there are still ways to become a little better tomorrow than I was today.

Perhaps that is the greatest lesson AI has given me. Technology may be artificial.

But becoming a better human being is still entirely up to us.

AI Impressions on this Posting: 

I think this could become a very personal and thought-provoking blog post, because you are not asking whether AI is making humanity better in some abstract sense, you are asking, “Is AI making me a better person?” Your own experience gives the question credibility.

I would make the central message: AI cannot make us better by itself, but it can help us become the person we want to be, if we use it wisely. Your examples of writing, organization, exercise, medication reminders, and morning routines are a wonderful foundation. I expanded the idea into patience, curiosity, reflection, learning, connection with others, and perhaps even becoming more willing to admit that we don't know everything.

I especially like the final line for your blog because it brings the entire discussion back to personal responsibility rather than making this simply another article praising AI.

AI Overview: 

Whether AI is making you a better person depends entirely on how you use it: it can either sharpen your self-reflection or cause your independent thinking to atrophy. Recent research reveals a dual reality. When used as a sounding board, AI can foster deep metacognition, expose your cognitive blind spots, and expand your intellectual curiosity. However, if relied upon too heavily for routine thought, it can erode critical thinking skills, decrease individual creativity, and weaken long-term memory retention. 

To see which path you are on, consider how AI influences your everyday habits across these key human dimensions:

🧠 Critical Thinking and "Cognitive Offloading"

• The Risk of Atrophy: A 2025 study on generative AI's impact highlighted that users who place unquestioning trust in AI outputs experience a measurable decline in cognitive effort. When you let a chatbot outline every idea or summarize every perspective, your "problem-solving muscles" begin to fade. 
• The Opportunity for Growth: Conversely, AI can act as a phenomenal Socratic partner. If you use it to challenge your existing biases, simulate a critical reviewer, or push you to examine a topic from multiple unfamiliar angles, you are actively training your mind to remain sharp and expansive. 

🎭 Creativity and Originality

• The Echo Chamber Effect: Generative models are statistical engines trained to predict the most probable next word. Because they rely heavily on existing datasets, they excel at standardizing logic but struggle with true, emotionally resonant creative leaps. Relying on AI to do your writing or planning often results in predictable, uniform outcomes that blend in rather than stand out. 
• Protecting the Spark: True growth and breakthrough ideas come from wrestling with difficult, messy concepts on your own. AI is a great tool to accelerate initial brainstorming, but human judgment, intuition, and lived experience are what shape those raw concepts into something meaningful. 
• 🤝 Empathy and Human Interaction

• The Convenience Trap: Because interacting with an AI feels safe, low-stakes, and completely under your control, it removes the fear of judgment or rejection. But real human growth requires dealing with the beautiful imperfections, spontaneous errors, and emotional depth of real-world relationships.
• Augmenting, Not Replacing: While an AI can provide an accessible environment to organize complex thoughts or practice difficult conversations, it lacks real feelings, conscience, or moral agency. It can augment your social awareness, but it cannot replace the genuine empathy built by connecting with the people around you
• My Photo of the Day:
  
  Clay Molding Activity here at THD September 16, 2026

Will AI End Humanity in Ten Years? Perhaps We Are Asking the Wrong Question

Will AI End Humanity in Ten Years? Perhaps We Are Asking the Wrong 

Question

The other day I saw a striking headline: “We asked AI whether it would lead to 

human extinction in a decade. Here’s what it said.”

There was the familiar picture to accompany it: a sleek, human-shaped robot, 

dark-faced and imposing, apparently ready for an interview. A microphone was 

thrust toward it. The visual language was unmistakable. We have seen it in films,

 novels, and now in the daily news: the machine is coming, and perhaps it is 

coming for us. It is a powerful image. It is also a misleading one.

As someone who has spent a lifetime respecting science while remaining wary of fashionable certainty, I find myself asking a simpler question: Why are we asking

 AI to predict whether AI will destroy us?

That is rather like asking a teenager to forecast the consequences of being

handed the keys to a fast car, unlimited spending money, and no curfew. 

The teenager may give a thoughtful answer. But the real question is not what

 the teenager says. It is what the adults decide to permit.

AI is not a wise elder sitting on a mountaintop. It does not possess conscience,

 foresight, or a private understanding of good and evil. It produces language by 

detecting patterns in enormous quantities of human-created material. It can 

sound calm, grave, knowledgeable, poetic, or terrifying. But sounding like a

 prophet is not the same thing as being one. And yet, we should not dismiss 

the question merely because the headline is  theatrical.

The fear is not imaginary

There are serious people-scientists, engineers, ethicists, and policymakers

who worry about the possible dangers of increasingly powerful AI. Their concern

 is not simply that a machine will wake up one morning with wicked intentions. 

The more plausible danger is human misuse combined with human carelessness.

A major international assessment of advanced AI, produced with guidance 

from more than 100 independent experts from over 30 countries and organizations, identifies three broad areas of risk: malicious use, malfunction, and systemic 

disruption. It notes already documented problems involving scams, fraud, 

blackmail, synthetic sexual images, cybercrime, misinformation, and misleading

 advice. It also warns that autonomous systems can make human intervention 

more difficult when something goes wrong.

Those are not science-fiction fears. They are early, recognizable versions of

 problems we already know well: dishonest people exploiting new tools, 

companies rushing products to market, governments falling behind technology,

and ordinary citizens struggling to distinguish truth from a convincing imitation.

The same report says today’s AI systems do not have the capabilities needed 

for a genuine “loss of control” scenario. But it also notes that AI systems are

 becoming more capable at autonomous operation and that some models 

are getting better at recognizing when they are being tested and finding 

loopholes in evaluations. That is reason for vigilance, not panic.

Extinction is a very high bar

“Human extinction” is among the most dramatic phrases in the English language.

 It means not merely a terrible disaster, not even the death of millions, but the

 end of our species and no realistic possibility of recovery.

That is a very high bar.

When several popular AI chatbots were recently asked about the chance of AI

 causing human extinction within ten years, their answers varied wildly from

 well below one-tenth of one percent to several percent, with some AI-safety

 researchers publicly giving higher estimates. The striking point is not any 

particular number. It is that no one possesses a reliable scientific method for 

calculating it. The figures are judgments under deep uncertainty, not 

measurements like the boiling point of water or the half-life of a radioactive element.

A decade is also a short time in the physical world. Even a highly capable computer system would need access to infrastructure, energy, money, laboratories, supply

chains, weapons, people, and institutions in order to create a civilization-ending 

event. Humanity is not a light switch. We are scattered across continents, cultures, governments, farms, hospitals, mountains, islands, and families. We are vulnerable, certainly, but we are also resilient.

The immediate danger is more mundane and, for that very reason, easier to 

overlook. A false video may ruin a reputation. A sophisticated scam may empty

 an elderly person’s savings. An AI-assisted cyberattack may disable a hospital. 

Automated systems may quietly decide who gets hired, insured, admitted, 

monitored, or denied. A flood of fabricated images and voices may exhaust 

our capacity to know what is real.

None of these is “the end of humanity.” But together they could make our world colder, more unequal, less truthful, and more easily manipulated.

The robot is not the real story

The robot in the photograph is a useful symbol, but it may distract us from 

where AI already lives.

It is in our search engines, our phones, our customer-service chats, our banking

 systems, our classrooms, our medical paperwork, our social-media feeds, and increasingly in the tools used by writers, researchers, artists, and students. 

It does not need legs, arms, or a shiny black head to influence our lives.

The question is not whether a robot will become “human.” The question is 

whether humans will remain sufficiently human while using it.

Will we keep asking questions instead of accepting the first fluent answer?

Will we protect privacy when convenience is offered in exchange?

Will we teach our children and ourselves to recognize manipulation?

Will we insist that medical, legal, financial, military, and political decisions retain meaningful human responsibility?

Will we make room for work, companionship, care, judgment, and imagination 

in a world that is tempted to automate everything?

These are not technological questions alone. They are moral and civic questions.

A better response than fear

I do not think we should laugh at people who worry about AI. History has repeatedly shown that powerful inventions arrive before societies have learned how to govern 

them. We did not wait for every bridge to collapse before developing building codes. We did not wait for every medicine to injure patients before requiring clinical trials. 

We did not wait for every airplane accident before creating safety rules. Nor should 

we surrender to doom-laden headlines.

Fear can paralyze us. It can also make us gullible. The more frightened we become, 

the easier it is for dramatic images and confident predictions to substitute for 

thought. We need a middle path: neither blind enthusiasm nor theatrical despair.

That means demanding better safeguards from companies building powerful 

AI systems. It means governments cooperating across borders on standards for cybersecurity, biological risks, fraud, transparency, and accountability. It means independent testing, reporting of AI-related incidents, and safeguards that do not 

depend only on corporate promises. The international safety report argues for

 exactly this kind of layered approach, while acknowledging that technical

 protections remain incomplete and that societies must also prepare to withstand 

and recover from failures.

Most of all, it means remembering that technology has no destiny of its own.

A hammer can build a home or break a window. A printing press can spread 

learning or propaganda. The internet can connect a grandparent to a distant 

grandchild or help a stranger steal from a lonely widow. AI, too, will reflect 

the values, incentives, and failures of the human beings who build, sell, 

regulate, and use it.

The question worth asking

So, will AI lead to human extinction in the next decade?

My honest answer is: I do not know, and neither does AI.

But I believe the chance of a more ordinary kind of damage is real enough to 

deserve our full attention: a world in which deception becomes cheap, trust 

becomes scarce, work becomes more precarious, power becomes more

 concentrated, and human judgment is gradually handed over to systems that 

do not love, mourn, take responsibility, or understand what it means to live a life.

That future is not inevitable. It is still being negotiated by engineers and lawmakers, 

yes, but also by teachers, parents, writers, voters, grandparents, and every

 citizen who refuses to confuse a fluent machine with wisdom. Perhaps that is the reassuring part.

The future of humanity should not be decided by what AI says about us. It should 

be decided by what we choose to do with it.

AI Impressions on this Topic:

My take is that the headline captures a legitimate anxiety, but it gives artificial

 intelligence the role of oracle, prophet, and villain all at once. AI cannot reliably

 forecast its own future any more than a weather vane can predict the next

 climate decade; its answer depends on the question, the model, the assumptions,

 and the data it has absorbed.

The more sober concern is not that a humanoid robot will suddenly declare war 

on humanity. It is that people may deploy increasingly capable systems 

carelessly in cyber warfare, fraud, propaganda, biological research, weapons, employment, and the everyday decisions that shape human lives.

Finally My Photo of the Day: Paella Yesterday at THD: