There’s a lot to hate about AI. But what if there was a mindful way to use it?

I’m not proud of it, but for the last year I’ve been the annoying guy at parties talking about AI. When I tell people I’m working on a newsletter about it, I’m met with the usual frowns and suspicion.

But wait! Don’t go away yet. This isn’t one of those ads about how an AI tool can replace your friends or trick your boss into thinking you stayed up all night working on a presentation. Instead, I focus on ways to use AI that don’t strip me or anyone else of their humanity.

Like most people, I hate meaningless chatter and the threat AI poses to our privacy, mental abilities, and workplace. But I see AI as similar to the Internet.

Yes, the internet has unfortunately given us doomscrolling, data harvesting, clickbait, and your uncle’s Facebook posts about vaccines. But it also gave us digital maps, podcasts, niche blogs, Wikipedia, video calls and, who can forget, the Guardian app.

Like any powerful tool, people will exploit AI for nefarious purposes, but that doesn’t mean we…