I previously wrote a post about my thoughts on AI. Recently, I’ve been thinking more about it based on my experiences in both my academic and personal life.

Last week, I got married. We flew from San Francisco to Maryland for our beach wedding, and I wrote my vows on the flight. They were short, but sweet. I felt confident that they captured what I wanted to tell my husband. Even if there were grammar mistakes, I knew he would understand me, and I thought the people who attended our wedding would appreciate them, too.

My husband finished writing his vows the night before the wedding. I knew he was working on them because he was writing on his phone beside me. His vows were much longer, and he wrote them in both English and Chinese. It took him a long time to read them in both languages. I loved them, and I enjoyed listening to him read them during our ceremony. Throughout this whole process, I didn’t think about AI at all.

Two days later, I read a post from a friend about someone who works in funeral services and had seen people read memorials written by AI. The post also mentioned that people might use AI to write wedding vows, letters to their children, and other personal messages. People may be using AI to help them express their feelings to others, or to replace their own writing.

It is a complicated situation. It made me think more. Is it okay to use AI to replace our own words when we talk to people in our lives? And what if the other person responds with something written by AI, too? Will it turn into AI talking to AI, or even two people asking the same AI to make “conversations”? In that case, are emotion and love being passed through the interaction, or is AI just imitating the form of a social interaction? Do people write breakup letters or messages using AI?

I find this interesting, but also a bit concerning. I worry that if AI replaces people’s social interactions, people may lose the ability to express their true feelings to the people they want to reach. It is similar to the concern that students who use AI for studying may lose the ability to think independently. I hadn’t thought before about whether AI could also affect people’s ability to interact with one another.

In academia, AI is playing a more significant role, which may be surprising but also concerning. More and more, students are sending AI-generated emails to professors to ask all kinds of questions or request PhD and postdoctoral positions. Researchers complain on social media platforms like Bluesky and LinkedIn about AI-generated manuscripts and proposals, which take real people’s time and work to review. Meanwhile, some funding agencies are starting to use AI to review the manuscripts and proposals that people spend weeks or months preparing. Job applications are also going through AI screening.

Sometimes, as I sit in front of my laptop, I wonder how much of my work is being evaluated by a real person and how much is being analyzed by AI in a few seconds. Not to mentions those ethical questions about putting people’s work into AI systems. I also wonder if we can still trust the system.

These are some of the questions AI raises in our lives. I don’t think the answer is as simple as saying we should ban AI, but I wonder how we can navigate these situations. I think AI is somehow affecting our trust in basic social interactions. For example, how do you know if this post was written by me or generated by AI?