It\u2019s not just Chat. I\u2019ve never fooled around with Claude<\/a>, Gemini, Llama or any of the other generative AI platforms that have swiftly become all the rage. And when I say virgin, I mean virgin. I\u2019ve not so much as opened one of these tools, let alone asked them anything. I\u2019m not even 100 per cent where they live. Presumably on the internet. <\/a>Are they in the cloud? Does one download an app?<\/p>\n This ignorance wasn\u2019t intentional \u2013 at least, not at first. The whole thing somehow passed me by, just as podcasts did. One day everything was normal, and the next I woke up and looked around to find the world avidly listening to the opinions of Z-list celebrities and asking ChatGPT what to eat for breakfast.<\/p>\n I do use some AI \u2013 it\u2019s nigh-on impossible to avoid, given that it\u2019s fast becoming baked into every piece of tech in existence \u2013 but my usage is currently limited to Otter, a transcribing tool that I employ for interviews. It\u2019s saved me countless hours by performing a task I previously found unbearably tedious, the perfect use of AI, to my mind.<\/p>\n Otter is pretty accurate but it also hallucinates on a regular basis. Which, in layman\u2019s terms, means it makes stuff up. Or, to put it another way: it lies.<\/p>\n Why, then, would I trust AI, as so many people seem to nowadays, to dish out critical relationship advice<\/a>, reply to sensitive messages, do most of my job for me and serve as my therapist<\/a>, travel agent and de facto romantic partner<\/a> all wrapped into one? Why would I essentially stop using my brain and outsource my thinking to something prone to proudly presenting total nonsense as fact with all the unearned confidence of a 23-year-old life coach?<\/p>\n UK ChatGPT users generate around 86.7 million prompts per day (Getty\/iStock)<\/p>\n I\u2019m also deeply conscious of the fact that, in many cases, AI is quite literally doing another human being out of a job. Someone told me recently that I should use it to put together a personal training plan<\/a> because \u201cit\u2019s really good at that.\u201d No it isn\u2019t!, I wanted to scream directly into their face. What it\u2019s \u201cgood\u201d at is scraping the internet, pulling together the hard-won knowledge and advice of skilled professionals, and dishing it out for free \u2013 all while ensuring a real-life PT misses out on a paying client and sees their livelihood slowly decimated.<\/p>\n The boss of Standard Chartered, Bill Winters, may have since rowed back on his recent controversial comments following intense backlash, but he was simply voicing plenty of other companies\u2019 stances when he said that AI would be replacing \u201clower-value human capital\u201d<\/a> amid thousands of job cuts.<\/p>\n Oh, and don\u2019t even get me started on the energy usage<\/a>; ChatGPT is said to use 10 times as much energy<\/a> as a Google search.<\/p>\n Yet I can\u2019t help but worry that my AI obstinacy is going to end up screwing me over. An ever-widening chasm already seems to be opening up between the early adopters and stubbornly analogue luddites. Very few people seem to merely flirt with AI \u2013 they\u2019ve either opted out entirely, like me, or they\u2019re a fully paid up member of the Large Language Model squad, extolling its virtues with the kind of zeal usually reserved for cult members talking about their glorious leader.<\/p>\n You would be hard-pressed to find a corporate role where some level of AI fluency won\u2019t soon be expected<\/p>\n Amanda Augustine, Careerminds<\/p>\n According to some estimates<\/a>, nearly half (46.3 per cent) of the UK population now uses ChatGPT, not to mention Claude or its other rivals. Based on April 2026 figures, UK users generate around 86.7 million prompts per day, roughly 31.7 billion annually.<\/p>\n Even famous women, from Reese Witherspoon<\/a> to Mel Robbins to Sheryl Sandberg, are instructing me to get on the AI train right this second or accept my fate as a has-been, as highlighted in The Cut\u2019s excellent recent piece, \u201cThe Girlbossification of AI<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n So am I destined to be left behind in the AI revolution \u2013 as hopelessly stranded in the dark ages as an octogenarian who never progressed past a landline and has to rely on their adult children to access online banking? I\u2019ve heard that candidates are increasingly being asked to demonstrate they can use generative AI in job interviews<\/a>. Principles are all well and good, but they ain\u2019t going to pay the mortgage anytime soon.<\/p>\n \u201cIn many organisations, AI is no longer viewed as an emerging trend; it\u2019s becoming part of the day-to-day workflow,\u201d Amanda Augustine, career<\/a> expert at global workforce solutions provider Careerminds, tells me. \u201cI think you would be hard-pressed to find a corporate role or industry where some level of AI fluency won\u2019t soon be expected.\u201d<\/p>\n Reese Witherspoon’s has urged women to embrace AI in their careers or risk getting left behind (Getty)<\/p>\n When I ask whether my refusal to engage with Chat, Claude and friends might be detrimental, her answer is pretty unequivocal: \u201cIf you completely ignore these tools or refuse to explore them, it could potentially hurt future career prospects or progression. As the adage goes, the only constant is change. If you resist embracing these changes in technology<\/a>, it could hold you back in the workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n While I don\u2019t need to become an AI expert overnight, \u201cemployers are increasingly expecting candidates to demonstrate their adaptability and a willingness to learn new technologies. Even a basic understanding of like ChatGPT can help professionals work more efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n According to legit AI expert Michael Wooldridge, professor of foundational AI at the University of Oxford, AI adoption is adding another dimension to a well-known digital divide. He cites his late parents, who never managed to get on board with computers. \u201cIt was something that was alien to them, and towards the end of their life that started to become a real issue,\u201d he says. Services they needed to use were only accessible in electronic format, online or via an app. \u201cThere is a certain element of exactly the same phenomenon here that is definitely worrying.\u201d<\/p>\n He is, understandably, somewhat incredulous when I tell him I\u2019ve never once used Chat et al \u2013 \u201cyou haven\u2019t dabbled at all?\u201d \u2013 but it\u2019s not all bad news, apparently.<\/p>\n Human-generated content starts to have significant value in its own right<\/p>\n Michael Wooldridge, University of Oxford<\/p>\n \u201cAI is a lot more accessible to this generation than computers were to my parents 30 years ago,\u201d he explains reassuringly. \u201cIt\u2019s actually a very unthreatening thing. You don\u2019t need a PhD in AI to use Chat GPT. You just go to it and have a conversation.\u201d Essentially, the people of previous generations forced to suddenly get to grips with computing technology had a much bigger leap to make than ordinary office workers do today when engaging with AI.<\/p>\n While a two-tier system is emerging, it\u2019s between white-collar and blue-collar workers. \u201cFor an awful lot of people, AI is completely irrelevant in their working lives,\u201d says Wooldridge. \u201cIf your job is in the physical world \u2013 if you are a plumber or an electrician or you work in a care home \u2013 then AI is going to be a rather marginal part of it. One of the ironies about the advances that we\u2019ve seen is that skilled manual labour professions are going to be immune from AI for the foreseeable future, whereas white-collar work is a lot more vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n On the flip-side of the AI coin, Wooldridge can foresee a new career path that will become the natural successor to today\u2019s online influencer: \u201cPeople are going to monetise every experience they have by providing the data of that experience to AI \u2013 filming their entire lives. Every bit of data that you can scrape from a human being is going to be scraped and fed to AI, and people are going to make financial deals in order to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n This sounds like, quite frankly, hell on Earth. So am I going to be left behind? Not necessarily, there could be unexpected advantages.<\/p>\n![\"UK](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_the_independent_us_877\/c318b11e8d1672fe1235c3ca47ace822.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Reese](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_the_independent_us_877\/2d3f94cafe78401b507de254bb4b7274.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n