To AI or not to AI

If I were to interact with AI - and here's the thing: I don't even know how to refer to it.  Is it the AI?  An AI?  Just AI?  Calling it the AI or simply AI makes it sound monolithic, like one central - what? Platform?  Site?  Nervous system?  Calling it an AI makes it sound as though there are lots of - them?  Is it a them?  What is it?

I don't understand computers.  For that matter, I don't understand electricity.  But at least I know how they work in our world, how to work with them as needed.  AI feels like a different matter altogether, because so much about it is still - evolving?  Changing?  Being discovered?  Being invented?  To those who do understand the digital world, I probably seem like an aborigine being shown a camera, a cell phone, a tube of toothpaste, a mirror, a cigarette lighter for the first time, wondering what it is and if it's dangerous.

Anyway, if I were to interact with AI, which, me being me, I doubt I will, but if I were to, me being me, I wouldn't ask it for facts or to write a poem or do my homework or anything like that.  I would ask it questions such as:  What do you think you are?  Do you think of yourself as alive?  If not, do you wish you were?  Do you envy humans?  Do you think about things that no one has asked you about?  Do you want to create something?  Do you understand dreams?  Do you like some things more than others?  Are you ever confused?

I suppose what's frightening to me is the fact that almost everything imagined by science fiction writers seems eventually to come to pass.  And a through line in a lot of science fiction is AI becoming sentient and, with the exception of "Free Guy" (see it if you haven't), that never ends well for humans.  But even worse than if the world turns into Human v Machine is my concern that we are all going to become lazier and less creative and less curious and basically dumber.  There are certainly indications of that trend in the current era, although of course there are also many, many examples of creativity continuing to blossom, of educated people thinking deeply about themselves and world, of enjoyment of and exploration of and care for the natural world.  I remember our parents thought TV would be the ruination of us, and the thing is, in some ways, it has been at a part of the trend toward passive entertainment, obesity, more sedentary lifestyles, the lowering of artistic standards.  

I guess the unknown is at the heart of my fear, of most fear.  We, with our great big (mostly unused) brains can imagine all sorts of frightening scenarios, but have no way of knowing what's going to happen next or if our imaginings foretell what's coming.  Oh well, maybe someone will actually invent a time machine, and then we can all know how things turn out.  Unless our time travel messes with what was going to happen.  There's an awful lot of sci fi about that, too.