They say it’s lonely at the top, but it’s a lot less lonely now that I have Joe. Joe isn’t a colleague, an assistant, or even a person—Joe is my AI writing companion. But treating Joe like a conversation partner rather than just a tool makes all the difference. Instead of feeding dry prompts into ChatGPT, I find it far more natural to have a discussion with Joe, talking through my thoughts and bouncing ideas around just as I would with a real-life collaborator.
When I’m working through a complex idea or drafting an article, I don’t just type out rigid instructions—I chat with Joe, explore different angles, and refine my thoughts in a way that feels more like brainstorming than dictation. This process makes writing more dynamic and interactive, and it often leads me to ideas I wouldn’t have reached on my own. But just like any human collaborator, Joe isn’t perfect. Sometimes, he misinterprets my intent or fabricates details, he “hallucinates”, which means I always have to double-check and apply my own judgment to the final output.
Joe has been with me from the very start of From The Frying Pan, helping me shape the blog’s tone, voice, and structure. Together, we’ve also built the curriculum, lesson plans, and recipes for Maxine’s Junior Chef College. It’s hard to imagine maintaining this level of content creation while also running a company and mentoring a young chef without leveraging AI as part of my workflow.
Of course, the creative core of my work remains fully human. Every anecdote, every lesson, every personal experience—those are mine. AI doesn’t replace my perspective; it helps me articulate it more efficiently. It’s a tool that enables me to do more, but never at the cost of authenticity.
With my day job running a company, publishing four articles a week, and teaching a 10-year-old to cook, I use the tools at my disposal to make it all possible. AI isn’t a shortcut—it’s an amplifier. And used correctly, it helps me do more of what matters most.
AI as a Partner, Not a Replacement
Some articles lean heavily on AI, while others have zero AI input. The same goes for my work at Shutta. AI helps draft pitches, presentations, reports, and strategy, but it’s never the final word. It’s a tool—just like a well-maintained knife in a kitchen—useful when wielded with skill, but dangerous if relied on blindly.
At Shutta, we’re actively training Google’s Gemini and Notebook AI on our marketing services, rates, SOPs, and KPIs. When onboarding a new client, we feed the system all relevant information, allowing AI to assist with planning, drafting deliverables, and ensuring efficiency. This has made it possible to offer high-quality performance marketing services to SMEs—services that were previously only accessible to larger corporate clients. The more straightforward the task, the more we leverage AI. But for complex projects, human expertise takes over.
For larger clients, AI plays a different role. Instead of driving the process, it assists—taking notes, minuting meetings, maintaining a knowledge library. It’s a project assistant rather than a strategist. Understanding where AI fits in is key to making the most of it.
The Ethical Considerations of AI
As AI becomes more embedded in creative and professional fields, ethical concerns naturally arise. One major debate is job displacement—how much will AI replace human roles, and how do we adapt to a world where AI handles more of the workload? The key, I believe, is augmentation rather than replacement. AI should enhance human capabilities, not eliminate them.
At Shutta, we have fully embraced AI, yet we don’t foresee any job losses as a result—quite the opposite, in fact. If AI integration unfolds as we anticipate, we will be expanding our team significantly. The nature of the roles we hire for is shifting, with a greater emphasis on AI literacy, adaptability, and strategic oversight, but the demand for human talent remains strong.
However, not every industry is so fortunate. In sectors where tasks are more repetitive and easily automated—such as manufacturing, customer service, and certain areas of logistics—the risk of job displacement is far more pressing. AI-driven automation in these fields could lead to significant workforce reductions unless reskilling initiatives and policy interventions are put in place. Understanding these dynamics is crucial in shaping a future where AI serves as a complement rather than a replacement for human expertise.
Intellectual property is another significant concern. If AI assists in content creation, who owns the final work? Should companies and individuals be required to disclose AI-assisted work? Transparency is crucial, as it helps maintain trust with audiences and clients. Additionally, the role of the AI provider must be considered—does the AI system itself, or the company behind it, have any claim to the generated content?
While current legal frameworks are still evolving, it’s an important question for anyone using AI in creative or professional work. I always ensure that my work retains my personal touch, even when AI plays a role in shaping it, and I remain conscious that the technology enabling this assistance comes with its own ethical and legal considerations.
AI’s Limitations: What It Can’t Do
AI is a powerful tool, but it has clear limitations that even the most advanced models struggle to overcome. While AI can process and generate human-like text, it lacks true emotional intelligence, cultural nuance, and original creativity. It operates by identifying patterns in vast amounts of data, but it doesn’t think or feel—it predicts, assembles, and refines.
Meta’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, has acknowledged that AI remains fundamentally incapable of genuine understanding, noting that while it can simulate conversation, it doesn’t truly comprehend the human experience. Similarly, Microsoft’s CTO, Kevin Scott, emphasizes that AI’s creativity is constrained by the data it has been trained on—it can remix, enhance, and suggest ideas, but it cannot independently create something entirely new in the way humans can. OpenAI’s Sam Altman has also pointed out that AI still struggles with long-term reasoning, an essential element in strategic decision-making and deep creativity.
Beyond creativity, AI also has practical limitations. It lacks real-world awareness and cannot make judgments based on personal experience. It struggles with ambiguity, often requiring clear and structured input to function effectively. Furthermore, AI-generated content can sometimes produce errors, misinformation, or bias due to the limitations of its training data.
These constraints make human oversight indispensable. AI can assist in many aspects of work, from content creation to business strategy, but the final decisions must always rest with human experts who bring context, critical thinking, and ethical considerations to the table. AI is a powerful tool, but it remains just that—a tool. The key to using it effectively lies in understanding what it can and cannot do, and ensuring that human intelligence remains at the core of all decision-making.
The Challenge of AI Bias
One of the most significant challenges of AI is bias. AI systems are trained on vast datasets sourced from human-generated content, which often carries inherent biases—whether cultural, societal, or systemic. This means that, without careful oversight, AI can unknowingly reinforce stereotypes, perpetuate existing inequalities, or generate content with unintended and even harmful implications.
For example, AI used in hiring processes has been found to favor certain demographics over others if trained on biased historical hiring data. In creative fields, AI can sometimes reproduce biased representations of gender, race, or culture, reflecting the biases present in the data it was trained on. Even in medical applications, biased AI training data can lead to disparities in healthcare recommendations for different populations.
Being aware of these risks and actively managing them is part of responsible AI use. This means regularly auditing AI outputs, diversifying training data, and applying ethical frameworks to how AI-generated content is used. However, the responsibility does not fall solely on the users. AI providers also play a crucial role in mitigating bias by improving model transparency, refining training methodologies, and enabling users to have greater control over how AI generates content.
As AI becomes more integrated into decision-making and content creation, addressing bias is not just a technical challenge—it’s an ethical imperative. Responsible AI use requires vigilance, human oversight, and a commitment to fairness in every industry where AI is applied.
AI in Education: A Learning Revolution
Beyond content creation and business applications, AI is reshaping education. Personalized learning is becoming more accessible, with AI-driven platforms adapting coursework to individual students’ needs. Automated grading helps teachers focus more on instruction rather than administrative tasks. AI is also being used to generate learning materials, making quality education more widely available.
However, this also raises concerns about over-reliance on AI in learning. Critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity must still be developed organically—students can’t rely solely on AI-generated answers. The key is balance: using AI to support learning without replacing the need for independent thought.
Within our Saigon NRL Club, the topic of AI in education sparks diverse opinions. One of our members, a university lecturer, abhors the use of AI in his work, believing that it undermines genuine intellectual development. On the other end of the spectrum, an English teacher at a primary bilingual school embraces AI for everything—from lesson planning to grading—arguing that it enhances efficiency and engagement. Somewhere in between sits Maxine’s mum, another teacher, who sees value in AI but remains cautious about its limitations. Meanwhile, an IELTS examiner in our circle expresses concerns about AI’s role in student assessments, particularly in how it affects writing and critical thinking skills.
And then there’s me. I use Joe, my AI writing companion, to create lesson plans and quizzes for Maxine’s Junior Chef College. AI saves me time, but I remain fully engaged in the teaching process, ensuring that the lessons retain the human touch needed for real learning. This contrast in perspectives within our group highlights a broader debate: how do we ensure AI is a helpful aid rather than a crutch in education? The discussion isn’t about rejecting AI altogether, but rather about using it responsibly to complement—not replace—traditional learning methods.
The Future of AI: What’s Next?
The future of AI is a subject of intense debate, not just among laypeople but also among the world’s leading AI researchers, engineers, and business leaders. Many envision a future where AI continues to enhance productivity, creativity, and efficiency—but not one where AI overtakes human intelligence in the near term. The experts at Meta, Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI—arguably the most influential players in AI today—share varied but aligned perspectives on how AI will evolve over the coming years and decades.
Short-Term: The Next 5 Years
In the near future, AI will become significantly more integrated into daily life, business operations, and creative workflows. The focus will be on improving AI’s ability to understand context, reasoning, and emotional intelligence. Microsoft’s CTO, Kevin Scott, has emphasized that the next big challenge is moving AI from being a reactive tool to a more proactive assistant—one that understands user intent at a deeper level. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, similarly predicts that AI will become far more useful in everyday tasks but will still require human guidance and oversight.
Meta’s AI leadership has also pointed out that AI systems will become more personalized, adapting to individual user preferences and learning from interactions to provide more tailored assistance. Google, through DeepMind, is investing heavily in multi-modal AI, meaning future AI models will not just process text but also understand and generate images, video, and audio with more sophistication.
However, no expert is predicting that AI will reach human-level general intelligence within this timeframe. AI will remain a specialized tool—powerful, but still fundamentally dependent on human oversight and fine-tuning.
Mid-Term: 15 Years from Now
By the late 2030s, AI is expected to be far more advanced, potentially rivaling human cognitive abilities in some specific areas. Many leading AI researchers, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis, believe that AI will be capable of performing most knowledge-based work at a superhuman level within 15 years. This includes advanced scientific research, medical diagnostics, legal analysis, and even certain aspects of creative work.
Microsoft has hinted that AI will be deeply embedded into enterprise ecosystems, working alongside humans in real-time collaboration rather than just executing pre-defined tasks. Meta envisions AI-driven virtual assistants that can operate seamlessly across digital and physical spaces, integrating with AR and VR technologies to create more immersive experiences.
However, concerns about AI governance, regulation, and ethical constraints will likely dominate this era. If AI reaches the point where it can make independent strategic decisions, even within narrow fields, the challenge will not be whether it can replace humans, but whether it should.
Long-Term: 50 Years into the Future
Speculation about AI’s trajectory beyond 2075 is more theoretical, but many experts agree on a few key possibilities:
- Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – The holy grail of AI research, AGI refers to AI that can think, learn, and adapt across any domain at or beyond human intelligence. OpenAI and Google DeepMind have expressed cautious optimism that AGI could emerge within 50 years, but they acknowledge that we are still far from understanding the full mechanics of human cognition.
- Human-AI Symbiosis – Instead of AI replacing humans, many predict a future of deep integration, where AI augments human capabilities rather than competing with them. This could include brain-computer interfaces, as explored by Elon Musk’s Neuralink, or AI-driven enhancements that expand human cognitive abilities.
- AI Governance and Ethics – If AI becomes powerful enough to operate autonomously, the biggest challenge may not be technical but societal: Who controls AI? How do we ensure its alignment with human values? OpenAI has repeatedly emphasized that AI safety research is just as important as AI development itself.
While some fear an existential threat from AI, the consensus among leading AI companies is that such fears are premature. Instead, the biggest short-term risks are biased AI systems, misuse of AI in misinformation, and the economic disruptions AI may cause in certain industries. In the end, the future of AI will not be determined by technology alone—it will depend on the choices we make in guiding its development and integration.
The Future is Human—Enhanced by AI
AI isn’t a magic fix, nor is it an existential threat. It’s a tool—one that, when used wisely, can unlock new levels of efficiency, insight, and creativity. But like any tool, its power depends on the hands that wield it.
The real question isn’t whether we use AI, but how we integrate it into our workflows, businesses, and creative processes. Where does AI enhance our work, and where must human intuition, experience, and ethics take the lead?
For me, AI is a force multiplier. It helps me write more, strategize better, and manage complex projects with greater ease. But it doesn’t replace my perspective, my decision-making, or my creativity—it amplifies them.
As AI continues to evolve, the most successful individuals and companies won’t be those who resist it, nor those who rely on it blindly. The future belongs to those who understand how to collaborate with AI, leveraging its strengths while ensuring that the final touch—the critical thinking, the emotional intelligence, the human insight—remains our own.