There’s no denying that the technology world is changing – fast.
One analogy I keep coming back to is the show Mad Men, where entire pools of typists and clerks handled administrative work. As computers got smaller and cheaper, organizations adopted them for their speed and efficiency. The core skill of the clerk didn’t change — but the tool they were expected to use did, and that meant learning to work with it instead of fighting it. The efficiency of computers did take away the need for rooms full of typists and clerks. There’s no sugarcoating it.
The Internet was created long before it became a vital part of how we work and play. What changed was the infrastructure and accessibility — it reached beyond the desktop to everyone (who remembers getting the CD-ROM in the mail and waiting on dial-up? 🙋). Now it’s in everything from our pockets to our appliances.
Today, AI is creating new waves in our careers — for better and worse. I visited Gulf Shores earlier this month, and the whole time we were there it was double red flags 🚩🚩: no swimming, no going in the water. The waves were strong and forceful, and it would have been easy to get carried away. The force of AI feels the same. Constant and powerful. I’ll be the first to admit I have concerns — about the impact on our environment, on the arts, and about how to keep my own career growing in the direction I want while helping my students start theirs.
I don’t have all the answers for how to handle the waves of AI. But unlike my trip to the Gulf, we can’t just stay out of the water. We have to understand what it is and how to use it well. At this point, we can no more control it than I could control the waves. The best preparation is education.
Education on environmental impact. Data centers require significant energy and water, and those demands will likely keep growing. Understanding how AI models are trained, deployed, and optimized helps organizations make more responsible decisions about resource consumption. These data centers will probably become part of the landscape the way steel and automotive factories did in the 1900s (it’s still strange to reference it that way). But understanding what drives the resource usage can help reduce it — the way recycling did. Techniques like PEFT, or localizing LLMs with tools like Ollama, can lighten the draw on compute. Using them takes learning them.
Education on the impact to the arts. Personally, I still value human-created art and photography. The imperfections, the timing, the creative decisions behind a piece often give it a meaning AI-generated content struggles to replicate. As an amateur photographer, one of my favorite things is capturing the moment, culling, and editing it into something unique. I can’t prove it, but I wonder if losing art programs in our schools is part of what’s driving such heavy reliance on AI tools to make art, video, and music.
Education on career impact. As an educator, one of my goals is to prepare my learners for their careers and to spark the curiosity that keeps them growing. When people ask why I chose MIS, I joke that I didn’t have the attention span for computer science and business management bored me. It’s said in jest, but there’s truth in it. MIS was the perfect hybrid of tech and business, and even though I finished that degree years ago, the fundamentals gave me roots — the foundation to pivot when I needed to, explore where I was curious, and keep growing.
The waves of AI aren’t slowing down. We can debate them, fear them, embrace them, or resist them — they’re still coming. What we can control is how prepared we are. For me, that preparation starts with curiosity, education, and a willingness to keep learning. Those skills have carried me through every technological shift in my career, and I believe they’ll carry the next generation through this one too.
That belief is exactly why I built Bytes & Bits. It’s where I share what I’m learning so educators and learners — especially in rural America — can step into the water with skills instead of fear. You’ll find free tutorials and low-cost handouts built for teachers (yes, the ones paying out of pocket), with LMS-ready courses for schools and organizations on the way. If you’re ready to Stay, Study, and Succeed in Rural America, come learn with us at bytesandbits.org — explore what’s live now, and join the list to hear when our courses launch.
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