Security & Threat Intelligence · 30.07.2026, 11:03 UTC
Should You Use AI for a Task? Here’s a Simple Way to Decide
| Schweregrad | info |
|---|---|
| Kategorie | Security & Threat Intelligence |
| Quelle | Schneier on Security ↗ |
| Veröffentlicht | 30.07.2026 UTC |
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This essay originally appeared in The Guardian. I teach public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Munk School at the University of Toronto. And it will come as no surprise to you that my students regularly use AI to complete their writing assignments. Doing so is a waste of their tuition money. But if their entire career is going to include AI writing assistants, why shouldn’t they embrace their future? The best way I’ve found to explain the dilemma comes from the AI researcher Daniel Meissler: it’s the difference between work and the gym. At work, if your job is to move a bunch of heavy things from one side of the room to another, you should use whatever assistive tech you have on hand: a wagon, a forklift… even an AI-powered robot. But at the gym, it makes no sense for that robot to lift weights for you. The point of weightlifting isn’t to move heavy things across the room; it’s to actually lift those heavy things. The same analysis holds for any task an AI can do for you. If it’s work—if the task has to be done and no one cares how—then it’s fine to use AI assistance. But if the task is more like the gym, and how the task is done is at least as important, then it probably doesn’t make sense to use AI. This, of course, assumes that the AI is actually up for the task and that it’s trustworthy: that it can do the job well, that its mistakes are minimal and correctable, that it’s been secured from cyber-attacks that would influence its results. Those are all important, and shouldn’t be minimized. There’s no point giving an AI something that it can’t do reliably. …