I spent my growing-up years sans cell phones, texting, email and social media.

The internet was cumbersome (the good old dial-up days), and nothing like it is now. I didn’t get my first cell phone – a flip phone – until after I graduated from college.

Sounds like the stone ages, I know. Yet, I’m not that old.

Regardless, like most of my late-Gen X peers and “elder” millennials, I adjusted to all this new technology pretty smoothly. 

I am telling you this because, in my lifetime thus far, I’ve taken the addition of a whole range of new devices in stride. I’ve welcomed most of the changes. I have nothing against technology and finding ways to improve our daily lives. 

I am not nearly as eager, however, to embrace artificial intelligence. In 2025, it seems like AI has become woven into just about everything we do online. As I’ve written before, I know it’s only a matter of time before it comes for jobs like mine. 

What concerns me more is that a growing number of Americans are treating AI and its chatbots as if they were real. 

In researching this column, I was surprised at how attached humans have already become........

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