The earliest Artificial Intelligence program was written way back in 1951 but outside of science fiction AI didn’t enter the mainstream conversation until decades later. At Fast Company we’ve been covering AI technologies for many years but nothing has compared to the excitement and fear that Open AI and their artificial intelligence chatbot   ChatGPT has caused since it launched  this past November.  These new AI  tools can feel at times like a novelty or at other times a harbinger of doom.

But we’ve seen the panicked headlines that “the robots are taking our jobs” for years. How disruptive is AI? How can we use AI to our advantage? And is there anything we, as regular humans can do to not only keep our jobs but hold on to our humanity?