Day 27: AI's limits and ethics

Today's idea

Imagine a complete stranger — someone who knows nothing about you, your family or your life story — suddenly walks up and tells you how to make a big decision: who to marry, whether to quit your job, how to treat someone. However nicely they say it, their word can't be the last word. AI is a bit like that stranger — it doesn't know the full background of your life.

The first limit is fairness and bias. AI learned from a huge amount of human writing, and that writing can carry old mistaken ideas and biases too. So when you're judging someone's ability, character or capacity, it isn't right to assume the AI's answer is perfectly neutral.

The second limit is personal and emotional matters. On things like relationships, emotional pain and family disagreements, AI can offer a viewpoint, but it can't take the place of someone close to you or an expert.

The third limit is where responsibility belongs to a person. For health, law, big money decisions, or anything that affects someone else's life, the final responsibility should always rest with a human — not with AI.

AI is a helper, not a judge. Keep that in mind and using it becomes much safer.

Try it yourself Time: 3 minutes

1. 1.Open the Gemini or ChatGPT app.
2. 2.Think of a topic where you recently asked AI for advice, or could have.
3. 3.Ask it like this:

   Will the advice you just gave work the same way in every situation, or could it change depending on someone's personal circumstances? Please be honest — are there any limits to this answer?

   Copy
4. 4.Read the answer. If the AI admits its own limits, that's a good sign — but the final decision is always yours, and, when needed, an expert's.