The “A” in AI should not be a whisper

The “A” in AI should not be a whisper

The iconic Resorts World Manila TV ad became a pop-culture earworm sometime in 2012. And no, this is not a gambling promotion, I am just talking about the ad.

For years, I wondered: Why the whisper?

“Resorts World Manilaaaaah...”

I have not done some grand academic investigation into why they delivered the brand name that way, but looking back more than a decade later, I think the simplest explanation is probably the best one:

Branding. Thats it, and it worked.

The whisper became so recognizable that people started imitating it. I remember even kids playing outside turning it into a joke:

“May ibubulong ako sa iyo, bhe... Resorts World Manilaaaaah...”

You can still watch the iconic 2012 ad here, uploaded by the official Newport World Resorts YouTube channel.

Fast-forward to the present, sometimes I wonder whether we have started doing something similar with the A in AI.

Not literally, of course. We pronounce “AI” just fine.

But we seem to whisper what the A actually stands for: Artificial.

Humans are starting to forget that part.

We use AI to the point where some people expect full determinism from it. We expect it to know, decide, write, code, reason, remember, and somehow produce the correct answer every single time.

I mean, yeah, these systems will continue improving.

But to the extent that we want them to become us?

I am not sure about that, because one thing is certain that A will still stand for Artificial.

And maybe that is what bothers me about our growing codependency with these tools.

We knew from the beginning that the thing was artificial. But AI can give us this almost cocaine-like euphoria because it removes the effort from things we normally have to think through ourselves.

And thinking can be boring, that is normal for sure.

Any fundamentally cognitive task can feel tedious. Writing. Sleuthing. Reading documentation. Working through a problem. Even composing a simple 2 line email.

So we skip the boring part then we skip another one.

Until eventually, instead of using AI to assist the thinking process, we let it replace the thinking process.

That is where codependency becomes dangerous.

We begin relying on AI for almost everything. Even a simple 2 line Outlook reply suddenly has to pass through an email polisher. WTF!

Maybe your coding agent should not merely write code for you.

Maybe it should also teach you.

Maybe you should personalize it so persistently that every now and then it reminds you: Do the groundwork yourself. You are still valuable here, loser!.

Let the machine accelerate you without convincing you that you are useless without it.

Because someday your favorite codependent buddy will have an outage for some random fucking reason.

And if the moment it dies, you die too, then perhaps we designed the relationship badly.

Have you noticed the resemblance to romantic relationships? Too much codependency?

Oops wait wait hehe. We are not going there. Pero pag toxic na bhe, puking ina iwan mo yan! Hahaha.

We sometimes treat AI like some heavenly creature destined to give us certainty, perfect answers, and full determinism.

But, bhe:

Ang “A” nga doon ay Artificial. Ano ba te!

Maybe the problem is not that we cannot pronounce the A in AI.

Maybe the problem is that we have started whispering what it stands for.