This is my weekly column where I talk about anything that happens to cross my brain on any given day.

Recently came across a post from a municipal candidate and old friend in Ontario arguing there is “no excuse” for candidates or elected officials to use artificial intelligence.

AI, the argument went, takes work from designers and writers, consumes energy and water, and lets candidates skip the work of actually doing the work.

There are legitimate concerns buried in that argument.

But history suggests we’ve had this conversation before.

During the Industrial Revolution, skilled textile workers watched mechanized looms transform their trade. The Luddites weren’t simply people smashing machines out of fear. They had real concerns about wages, livelihoods and skilled work disappearing.

The machines didn’t go away.

When automobiles began replacing horses, they disrupted an enormous economy. Blacksmiths, carriage makers and stable workers all depended on horses for a living.

Automobiles were noisy, dangerous and polluting.

We didn’t decide everyone should stick with horses.

When calculators entered classrooms, critics worried students would stop learning to think for themselves.

Try imagining someone today criticizing a city councillor for using a calculator to check the municipal budget.

Then came computers. They eliminated some jobs and changed others beyond recognition. They also built entirely new industries from nothing.

Then came the internet. It disrupted retail, newspapers and advertising. It brought real concerns about privacy, misinformation and security.

Some of those concerns turned out to be completely justified.

We didn’t turn off the internet.

We’re having the same conversation again, this time about artificial intelligence.

Yes, AI has legitimate problems. Questions about copyright, privacy, misinformation, employment and environmental cost all deserve real discussion.

But if the argument is that nobody should use AI because data centres consume electricity and water, shouldn’t we apply that standard consistently.

Turn off the lights. Unplug the computer. Put away the phone.

The electricity powering those devices carries an environmental cost too. Coal and natural gas produce greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear power has its own trade-offs and waste. Even renewable energy needs raw materials, manufacturing, land and transmission lines.

We don’t respond to any of that by abandoning electricity.

We acknowledge the costs, work to reduce them and weigh whether the benefit is worth it.

AI deserves the same scrutiny, not a different standard.

There’s a real difference between using AI to replace your thinking and using it as a tool.

If a candidate asks a chatbot what they should believe about property taxes, copies the answer and calls it a platform, voters should question that.

But researching, organizing ideas, tightening wording or building a graphic with AI doesn’t automatically make someone lazy. Can we guarantee that is where it is going to stop? No, but I’m pretty sure the Wright brothers didn’t envision hypersonic missiles raining down on civilian populations either.

I don’t care whether my councillor uses Google, Excel, Photoshop, Canva, a calculator or ChatGPT.

I care whether they understand what they’re doing with it.

Did they verify the information? Did they protect anything confidential? Are the ideas actually theirs? Will they take responsibility when they’re wrong?

Those questions are a far better test of someone’s fitness for office than which software sits on their desktop.

Every transformative technology brings legitimate concerns. Those concerns should shape how we use a tool, not convince us that refusing to touch it is some kind of virtue.

Picking up a new tool doesn’t mean you’ve stopped thinking.

Sometimes it means you’ve found a better way to get the work done.

Refusing the tools of tomorrow doesn’t protect today.

It just leaves you behind.