The rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across society in the past few years has both its benefits, and downfalls, which could change the way our communities are today.

The Clarence Valley Independent spoke to a Northern River’s based tech expert, who is a husband, father, and computer programmer, about the explosion in society of AI.

“AI in its current form is a human driven agent that is capable of processing data and performing tasks much, much, faster than a human can,” he said.

“But…it’s driven by humans.

“It’s good at, for example, taking millions of records and processing them with human prompting.

“For example, find me every record that has this phone number.

“It has many benefits, people at my work for example use it to provide suggestions on what common statistical KPI exist very quickly.

“This increases productivity.

“Another application that AI is very good at performing is facial recognition.

“From a trust and verification perspective, AI is very useful to ensure a person is who they claim to be.”

So which AI program does the expert trust?

“Any that undergo rigorous testing and guard rails… which is not many if any,” he said.

“The problem, so to speak, is big tech companies who are developing this stuff and, in a race, to achieve what they call Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

“Trustworthiness is 100 per-cent dependent on the human agent.

“Trustworthy to analyse your spreadsheets? Absolutely.

“Trustworthy to protect Intellectual Property? Debateable.

“AI is only as good as the data it has access to…currently.”

AI programs have already been proven to provide incorrect information harvested from online.

“You could achieve accurate results if you trained it properly on your subject,” the expert said.

“But that involves a process of telling it what worked and what didn’t.

“Every AI tool is pretty much the same from a under the hood perspective.

“They all use the same strategy.

“Data mining and Large Language Modelling (LLM).

“In my experience, it’s come a long way in the last 12 months.

“AI hallucinations are lessening.

“Where I work, it’s generally accepted to use generative AI, not unrestricted.”

But not everyone where the expert works uses AI.

“I personally don’t use it, but not because of trust,” he said.

“I always come at this from a human faculty perspective.

“If you consider our history, humans 200 years ago knew how to do many things that today we have no clue about, due to automation.

“That has unlocked new knowledge, so there has always been a clear benefit to the trade-off.

“With AI, I think the game is different, it’s not automation of strength or physical faculty but mind.

“Humans are trying to invent intelligence; AI is just the beginning.”

In many industries, AI is already replacing tasks previously done by humans.

“I’ll be honest though, AI can do maybe 60 per-cent of my job already,” he said.

“It can do it faster too… I’ve seen it, AI is generally better at most things already.

“It still gets it wrong though, and that’s why I’m still paid.

“Ironically, it will be computer programmers that will be first to be automated…the very people that helped build AI.

“People have no idea what’s coming.

“The more people use AI to speed up their day to day thought processes, the more dependent we become.

“The more AI learns too.

“The mere fact people like Elon say it will do everything you can do and more, should make people furious.”

Like many things, AI does come with its downsides and dangers.

“A bit of Googling will show many early studies on whether LLMs decrease human critical thought,” he said.

“They are mixed, but some do see trends in overall mental diminishment…particularly in children.

“Then there are the energy requirements of AI.

“AI data centres need massive amounts of power, and water, so that has some obvious issues.

“But I think what the public are most concerned about is privacy and identity theft.

“And deep fakes.

“Particularly young girls and teenagers, there are big issues in high schools with girls being bullied with deep fake nudes.

“But I guess, the single biggest thing that scares me the most about it is that its trajectory is such that it is moving so fast humans cannot keep up.

“Humans are taking short cuts to try and keep up, but if they ever actually manage to replace Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), we will all be too stupid to understand it.

“There are some in the AI industry trying to make it safer, but they are losing the race because investors are prioritising everything but safety.”

Society is becoming increasing economically dependant on AI success, he said, due to the volume of investment to keep markets afloat.

He said the adoption of AI could have a significant impact on unemployment, as the capability to automate every job will be possible by 2030, but deployment may be later depending on civic society.

“Unemployment will go through the roof as jobs become automated,” he said.

“It’s inevitable really.

“The sad thing is your average person just wants to work and be happy.

“A handful of men in the world are deciding their fate.

“I hope the bubble bursts…It will slow it down at least.”

The expert said the singularity is the theoretical point at which tech is so advanced, humans cannot keep up with its progress.

“We cease to understand it, control it, that is what they want,” he said.

“Intelligent cheap labour, 24 /7.”

This article appeared in the Clarence Valley Independent, 13 February 2026.