Kevin Frazier is an Assistant Professor at the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University. He previously clerked for the Montana Supreme Court.
New AI tools, like ChatGPT, threaten that horrible, wonderful process of trying to find the right words. Even as I typed that sentence, words suggested by my phone danced above the keyboard—passively steering me but directing me nonetheless.
These simple tools save time, right? And, they assuredly reduce typos, correct? Maybe they even help us communicate with one another by increasing the odds of everyone using similar phrases, that’s a good thing?
Soon AI tools will offer to replace our critical thinking in other contexts too. Need to decide who to vote for? In the near future you may engage with AI chatbots trained to emulate political candidates -- rather than go door to door, these candidates will develop and release bots that aim to persuade you to vote a certain way. Who needs the Iowa State Fair to evaluate a candidate in person when you can just ask “the candidate” any question you want by “talking” with their bot?
AI tools also shape what news we read and social media comments we see--in fact, they have done so for several years. And, in some cases, AI tools have taken over the “boring” parts of our jobs. Some lawyers, for instance, have turned to ChatGPT to conduct legal research and review documents.
Are these gains in convenience worth the loss? No. In fact, it’s the sort of deal that the playground bully would offer - trading you the basketball with a leak for your spot on the best swing.
The lesson is that convenience always comes at a cost.
So what are we unwilling to give up for a little more convenience? If we don’t identify the skills, tasks, and activities that are fundamental to being human, then there’s a chance that AI will not only address those core parts of being human but actually reduce our ability and willingness to do the very things that distinguish and define us. Folks in the AI safety space call this “enfeeblement” -- I prefer to think of it as a loss of our humanity.
Our willingness to embrace the added seconds or minutes or, god forbid, hours to do something without the aid of ChatGPT and other AI tools may soon fade. After all, tools of convenience have ruthlessly killed other things--like the joy of sending and receiving a handwritten letter.
So to protect our humanity we have to proactively declare what we regard as fundamentally human endeavors and fend off the urge to outsource those endeavors to tools of convenience.
This humble (and short) column will not try to list those endeavors. My hope is instead to start a conversation about the spaces we want to remain AI free--or at least to the fullest extent possible. Given the significance of the upcoming 2024 election, I think starting that conversation on the use of AI tools in democratic activities makes a lot of sense.
Should, for example, candidates be able to use AI chatbots to impersonate them? If so, should they have to provide a disclaimer that the bot is, in fact, not the candidate? May political parties release ads informed by AI tools to appeal specifically to you based on the mountains of data it has compiled about you?
I know my answers to these questions, but I want to know yours. We need to debate what makes us…well…us, if we are going to have any chance of developing norms, regulations, and laws that shield fundamental human endeavors from the dangers of convenience. What would you declare "AI Exclusionary Zones" and why? Such zones may seem like an odd thing to discuss but if we don't shield it, convenience will conquer.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.