The Glorious Quran site’s Editor’s disclaimer: We us AI prudently to present commentary of the Quran

Story by Dan Furman

4 min read

Whatever your opinion of AI, don’t fall into the trap of wishing it away. Because it’s not going anywhere.

Every technology wave has its skeptics. That’s healthy. Skepticism keeps hype in check and forces useful questions. What we’re seeing now with AI, though, feels different. 

There’s a subset of business owners, executives, and other professionals who  aren’t merely cautious about AI—they seem almost offended by it. Angry, even. They pounce on every hallucination, every factual slip, and every awkward paragraph, as if each error is proof that the whole thing is a fad destined to implode. I hear and read things like: 

“See? It messed that up.” 

“It can’t do what I do.” 

“This will never replace real professionals.” 

There’s less curiosity in these reactions than there is wishful thinking. And put bluntly, wishful thinking is a terrible strategy. 

This isn’t just plain old skepticism 

Anecdotally, I’ve noticed something that I find quite telling: The most resistant AI voices often come from people with the most to lose: white-collar professionals in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who’ve spent years mastering a craft that suddenly looks…uncomfortably augmented, if not flat-out replaceable. I’m not going to say being uneasy isn’t a normal reaction—it is. But it’s not helpful to your company or career.

Behavioral economists have a term for this: loss aversion. We fear losing what we have more than we value potential gains. When a new technology threatens status, income, or identity, the instinctive response is to deny and belittle it. So instead of asking a question, like “How will this change my industry?”, it becomes more of a statement like “Nah, this garbage won’t work.” And history is not kind to that mindset. Especially in the case of technology. 

AI is a toddler that’s already rearranging the furniture

One reason critics sound so confident is that they’re judging AI as if it’s a finished product. But of course, it’s not. AI as we know it is barely three years old. In technological terms, it’s a toddler. Think of a 486 computer screeching along on a 14.4 baud modem in the 90’s. Heck, I remember crashing the server at an old tech support job because I sent a (gasp!) 2MB email. Oops. But we’ve come a long way from that, haven’t we?  

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