I already perceive perfectly polished answers as artificial. "Super-correct" behavior, ideal work, the best solution are perceived as artificial. I crave a real encounter, a real failure, a real desire to prove something. What was criticized by lovers of objectivity only yesterday can somehow resonate today.

About 25 years ago, when a computer started confidently beating a grandmaster at chess, everyone started shouting that it was the end of chess. But no. The game continues, and people enjoy it. The level of players has risen exponentially. Never before have there been so many grandmasters. And everyone is finding their place in the sun. — Astorre

One can paint the most exquisite things with AI but still, apart from serendipity it still need an artist or poet to bring it forth.

You wait until you start working with AI to follow a spiritual search...

I've got here late but still want to reply to the OP...

I’ve always been sort of a skeptic when it comes to new tech most my because given human history we aren’t exactly good at using it to our betterment (looking at social media and the Industrial Revolution). — Darkneos

The vast majority of tech is a net benefit; it's just humans figuring out ways to do things.

Firstly bear in mind that everything we construct is tech....we tend to use tech as shorthand for things in the digital space from the last few decades, but speaking more fundamentally about tech, as you are, then the clothes you are wearing are technology, as is the building you're probably sitting in. Not merely the device that you're reading this on.

Secondly I'd dispute even your examples. The industrial revolution brought a lot of benefits, and although there was huge inequality, and a lot of pollution, in most cases the inequality was less than the agrarian society it displaced, and we have ameliorated a lot of the pollution. And it utterly transformed our quality of life.

Not to say there aren't still big problems, like climate change, but hands down it's been a net benefit to humans.

It seems that, like social media, AI is catering to our worst and basest impulses for immediate rewards and nothing thinking about the long term. — Darkneos

I would disagree with that. e.g. LLMs and the like are being used in most cases to create things and get advice. I don't see this as base impulses.

What’s gonna happen when you replace most jobs with AI, how will people live? — Darkneos

It's not a given that unemployment will increase. Technology tends to displace jobs and replace them with something else, hence why US unemployment has bounced around the same average for decades even as we've been in the information age.

In any case, jobs exist to fulfill human needs. If there are no jobs, that implies a post-scarcity environment. If we're saying only the rich can afford robots or whatever, then there are still jobs for human maids. You can't have tech that both no-one can afford and yet be maximally disruptive.

(Well, I don't actually think it's that simple, I am expecting a lot of social unrest and probably the unemployment rate will increase. Countries with a weak welfare safety net are going to suffer a lot. I am just trying to push back against the assumption of the OP)

So far AI just seems to benefit the wealthiest among us and not the Everyman — Darkneos

I use AI every day and I doubt I'd be the wealthiest guy in a soup kitchen.