Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become quite the conversation piece of late. Some embrace it and use it regularly. Others distrust it and want nothing to do with it.

None of that should surprise us.

With every major technological advance, there is apprehension. Radio, television, automobiles, the internet, and smartphones frightened some folks. Each brought warnings that the latest invention might ruin society. Yet we adapted, and someone inevitably found ways to improve the technology or put it to uses its creators never imagined.

Consider the smartphone. Suddenly, we had access to practically everything known to man right in our back pocket, provided we knew where to look. AI has taken the next step. It hasn’t merely put information in our pockets; it has put something resembling a research assistant in there with it.

AI can read a 300-page novel in seconds, summarize it and compare it with other novels. Due to insomnia issues, it takes me weeks to read one, and by the time I’m finished, I don’t remember enough about the darn thing to compare it to anything.

Don’t laugh. You’ll get old one day, too.

Unlike Google, which finds information, AI can organize and explain it. That doesn’t mean it’s always right. It makes mistakes and occasionally states something with great confidence that turns out to be complete nonsense. I know a few human beings who can do that, too.

There are legitimate concerns. AI will eliminate some jobs but create others. It can be abused. Schools are wrestling with students having AI do work they should be doing themselves. But those are arguments for using AI responsibly, not pretending we can put it back in the box.

I am hardly the person anyone would have expected to embrace this technology. I’ve never been adept at navigating software, and I discovered years ago that cursing at the computer doesn’t improve its performance. Nevertheless, I began experimenting with AI more than a year ago, and I now swear by it.

Before anyone starts sending me nasty letters, let me make something perfectly clear: AI doesn’t create my books, stories, commentaries, or newsletters for me. The ideas, opinions, characters, plots, and experiences are mine. I use AI primarily as an editor and research assistant, but I’ll also ask it to suggest a better sentence or tighten a passage. I also use a virtual assistant and a local company for various aspects of my writing, publishing, and marketing. AI hasn’t replaced the people I work with. It’s simply another tool I use alongside them.

I use it as a tool, nothing more.

And a pretty inexpensive one at that. The last time I hired a professional editor for a book, it cost me $3,000. AI can catch many of the same problems almost instantly and, in my experience, has caught things that expensive professional editing missed.

So why the stigma?

A writer who uses Google for research isn’t accused of cheating. Nobody condemns anyone for using spellcheck or Microsoft Word. Yet mention AI in some literary circles and you would think you had confessed to having a machine secretly write your novel while you sat around drinking gin.

If someone types, “Write me an 80,000-word mystery novel,” slaps his name on whatever comes back, and calls himself an author, I have a problem with that. But using AI to research Victorian London, check whether a train existed in 1893, find a grammatical error, or challenge a weak paragraph is no more dishonest than consulting an encyclopedia or handing a manuscript to an editor.

The writer still has to write.

Then we come to another rabbit hole: Is AI becoming conscious?

Heck, we don’t even understand human consciousness, so how are we supposed to determine whether a machine has achieved it? Is consciousness self-awareness? Memory? Emotion? Is it that voice inside our heads telling us not to eat that chocolate bar? Is there something spiritual involved, a soul that science cannot measure?

Mankind has been trying to figure out consciousness for a few thousand years without much success. Maybe we should solve that one before deciding whether AI has it.

I’m far less concerned about whether AI is becoming human than I am about how humans choose to use AI.

Every powerful technology can be used well or badly. The automobile gave us mobility…and drunk drivers. The internet gave us the world’s knowledge and people arguing politics with strangers. Smartphones connected us to everyone while somehow allowing four people at dinner to stare at four separate screens.

AI will have its problems, too. But it isn’t going away.

We can fear it, stigmatize those who use it, or learn to use it intelligently. I prefer the latter.

Used properly, AI can make writers better, just as it will improve countless other professions and services. We use it in our transportation business, although I’d be hard-pressed to tell you how.

The ideas and judgment still have to come from somewhere. So do imagination and humor. Trust me, AI has no sense of humor.

AI is simply another tool on the desk.

And unlike my computer, it doesn’t seem to mind when I curse at it.