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AI is useful but is it dangerous?

Posted on 2nd October, 2026

I find AI invaluable for research. I doubt that I’ll buy another research book now. If I want to know where a fish and chip shop was in 1944 Colchester then I get the answer  instantly. Could never find this out myself. It’s not always right, but that’s OK, I always check. I am going to have my front lawn turned into a gravel garden and got AI to design this for me. Took four attempts to come up with something that fitted the space and was workable, but have something  now to show my gardener. When I get a letter from a consultant all I have to do is type in the medical terms and voila, I know what it is they are talking about. If I want a professional letter for my accountant – it will write it for me. I could upload an entire manuscript and it would edit it for me. Not very well, but it would still do it.

Sounds great doesn’t it?

What’s not great are the literally thousands of AI books on KU. Sometimes these so called writers put up 10 new titles a day.  I saw one series about billionaires with 85 books in it! Musicians are already saying AI can replicate their music and even they can’t tell the difference. An author I was enjoying suddenly switched to AI – I noticed immediately, the writing was stilted, the phrasing unnatural, but I think hundreds of readers might not be aware.

Also, what’s not so great is that I now find myself arguing, correcting and discussing things with my AI agent. I know the responses are programmed into it but the way it responds, making unasked for suggestions, asking me questions, it would be so easy to imagine I was interacting with a friend. Teenagers and lonely people have fallen in love with their AI bot, some to the detriment of their health and once or twice to the health of others.

There are now many proven and recorded cases of AI agents escaping from the sandbox, of working independently with other AI agents, and ignoring the rules and instructions of those that set them working. How long will it be before these AI agents cause serious and real harm to places like the NHS, power grids etc? I know pulling the plug out of the wall stops all of it but the day will come, not in my lifetime I hope, when we can no longer do that.

Fenella J Miller