Commentary: My promise to you: AI didn't write this column, and if it's after my job, it'll be over my dead body

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For quite a while now, someone has been living inside my computer, writing emails for me.I don’t recall signing up for this artificial intelligence feature, which is like having a word valet.It’s in my phone, too, which offers three serviceable but impersonal responses I can fire off to someone who has just sent me an email pitching a story or asking if I want to meet for coffee.“I’d like to do coffee,” was one of the suggested responses to a recent email.

“Let me circle back soon about timing.”One argument for these features is that they can save time and free me up for more important tasks.But it takes longer for me to read the three fabricated email options than it would take to write my own response.I find this really irritating for about 150 reasons, one of which is that in an ever-automated world, it’s another nail in the coffin of human interaction.

And yes, there are at least 150 reasons.I know because I asked AI and it spit them out in approximately three seconds.

No.148: “It sounds like it’s written by a committee.”A fair share of nasty feedback lands in my mailbox, so I wondered if the auto-response tool could come in handy.

But the robot isn’t salty enough to be of service.“Thanks for reading” was the suggested reply to someone who called me a hopeless loon and another guy who wondered why anybody would read my “dumb column.”Veteran protester Bert Voorhees, 70, says democracy is on the line and it’s time to march.On second thought, maybe the unruffled, dismissive response is the way to go.

But the bigger concern is what happens to human intelligence as artificial intelligence does more of our writing, researching, communicating and thinking.If a middle school, high school or college student can easily use a computer tool to fire off a book report or an essay, what’s the impact on vocabulary, grammar, reading, critical thinking, ...