If We Don’t Pay the Poet, What’s AI For?

 

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I was twenty-one years old when I walked into the newspaper office with an article printed on my dot matrix printer. Older folks will remember those. They’re the ones that had perforated edges in the paper. They made a noise as they slowly spit out words line by line. For my very first article, I’d used a Commodore 64, not a typewriter.

 

It was terribly exciting, turning in that story for the local weekly paper. I remember feeling proud, maybe even a little bold. After I gave the paper to the editor, I told the two ladies who ultimately typed in copy that I was handing in the future. No more typesetting. No more cutting and pasting with rubber cement.

The newspaper would be done on a computer.

They laughed at me.

But I wasn’t wrong.

Technology did change everything, just like I said it would. The newsroom eventually traded the paste-up boards for pagination software, and now, here we are. Machines are taking jobs. We’re arguing over whether AI is a good thing or a bad thing. Is a machine that can hold a conversation about grief, ethics, and philosophy a good tool? Or are we standing on precarious edge of something we cannot define.

Because that’s where we are now, isn't it? On the edge of another big change. One just as big as the industrial revolution. Maybe bigger. This time, we don't have the luxury of laughing at the kid with the article in her hand. This brave new world is both thrilling and deeply unsettling: the promise of a new age, tempered by the sobering truth that not all change is progress, especially when it happens without justice.

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It’s hard not to feel torn about the growth in technology. On the one hand, I see so much potential. If we do this right, AI could lift people out of survival mode and help us build a society where dignity isn’t tied to working yourself half to death. We could take care of each other better, free up time for art, music, rest. The base of Maslow’s triangle, that is, food, shelter, and safety, could be solid ground, not quicksand.

But if we do it wrong, and let’s be honest, we don’t have a great track record, we’re headed for something much darker. I don’t want to live in a world where people sleep in cardboard shacks because a machine does their job and we’ve made no plan for what comes next. We keep calling people lazy when it’s the system that pulled the rug out.

It’s not “immigrants taking my job.” It’s tech. Quietly, efficiently, inevitably.

And if we keep treating human creativity like an afterthought with no value, we’re going to lose something essential. AI can write poems and paint pictures now, but it didn’t grow up listening to the same music I did, watching deer cross a foggy field at dawn, or wondering how a girl from Botetourt County ended up explaining digital futures.

AI could free us from drudgery, from hunger, from burnout. Imagine a world where no one worries about rent or healthcare or whether they can feed their children. Where dignity isn’t tied to a job title but to being human. That world is possible. But only if we choose it.

It’s a painful irony. People are endlessly creative, but we don’t pay the poet. We pay the one who cuts the check. We outsource art to algorithms while the original artist goes hungry. When art is treated as luxury instead of lifeblood, society starts to hollow out.

We need to value those who do the work only people can do: caregiving, teaching, healing, creating. Maybe someday a machine will be able to cut my hair, but it won’t lean in close and whisper, “You’re doing okay.” It won’t see my eyes swimming with tears and change the subject gently. It won’t connect the moment to something deeper.

A new vision is what we need right now, one where progress is measured not by GDP or shareholder returns, but by how many people have time to make music, grow gardens, write verses, raise children with love and attention. One where the tools of AI allow the things that make us human flourish. We shouldn’t replace or commodify the very things that make people unique and necessary.

AI isn’t the enemy. But we have to decide who’s holding the reins. If it’s just corporations looking to cut costs and maximize profit, we’re in trouble. We need real, honest humans who will think hard about justice, dignity, and meaning to reimagine where we are in the world.

Then maybe we’ve got a shot at building something better.

I’ve been playing with computers since the first Commodore Vic 20 came out in 1980. I was among the first of one million people to purchase this initial affordable home computer. I could see even then that this was a big deal. I knew eventually that computers would turn into something that would talk back to me.

I saw endless possibilities. I still believe in those possibilities.

But the right people - folks with empathy, foresight, and humility - have to pay attention.