What AI gives and what it takes away

On Sept. 4, 2025, US President Donald Trump hosted a large gathering of technology leaders including those from the Big 5 or Gafam (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft) to collectively discuss the intent and plans to secure the country’s position as leader in the AI space.

At the dinner table, most leaders echoed how AI was changing the world and expressed how the government’s support was crucial to sustaining progress. Bill Gates, now more of a philanthropist, talked about leveraging the power and innovation of AI for the greater good: for health, agriculture and education. Deloitte’s latest Tech Trends report discusses how AI is clearly a common path that most organizations are taking. It also expounds on how it is expected to permeate daily lives, making things work smarter and faster. By now, most know that AI tools help perform simple tasks and that content consumed and interacted with becomes data points for user preferences and the basis for what they engage with next. These are just the tip of the iceberg.

In the last 50 years, some of the best innovations have become common utility including the internet, smartphones and GPS. Applications of these technologies have expanded over time, with most people already having difficulties imagining life without them. AI is positioned to do the same and can now be considered as the next big wave of industrial revolution.

But there is also a growing sense of concern about its impact. Apprehensions about AI becoming too woven into the fabric of people’s lives and humanity taking it for granted have surfaced, driving the belief that there is now a risk of losing the know-how to do things without it due to over-reliance. How then to balance human creativity and judgment with the use of AI?

In the ongoing AI ethics debate, instead of just asking if it’s good or bad, alternative considerations should also be raised. Does AI add or take away? What do people gain or lose as it transcends human knowledge, capabilities and skills? How does it elevate or decrease the human experience? And once these are answered, how critical are the things that we potentially lose to AI?

One of the articles in Deloitte’s Tech Trends talks about how AI brought the digital world closer to lived reality and what this means in the medical field. One benefit mentioned was simulations and how these were helping doctors and nurses train, making learning more dynamic than poring over books. This pushed one public health authority in British Columbia to invest in simulation models to improve patient care.On the extreme end, Eric Nguyen, a bioengineering PhD student at Stanford University, in a recent TEDTalk, discussed how his work on genomic foundation models was evolving, including the possibilities of prompting the technology to understand sources of illnesses, predict reactions to certain medicines, or even find permanent cures based on a person’s DNA, which he views as a language model on its own.

These are all impressive developments but arguably the pushing of the boundaries can be quite controversial as scientists start to dabble with DNA alteration and DNA generation with the help of AI — literally “creating and changing life.” And since technology is moving at a pace never seen before, the fear of the unknown is magnified and justifies the call to take back control — thus the thrust towards trustworthy AI and the continuous development of policies, frameworks and processes to govern it.

Meanwhile, in a 2024 article on creative disruption published by Deloitte, the authors laid out how the arts had progressed through history and transformed to different forms — from spoken to written word to printed books, from painting to photography. Fast forward to GenAI, which has democratized access to creative production and consumption, generating thousands of images from prompts that go viral in seconds.

In 2022, an AI-generated photo by Jason Allen, titled “Theatre D’opera Spatial,” won first place in the digital category at Colorado State Fair and was met with serious backlash. In 2023, Spotify launched its AI DJ, creating personalized playlists based on one’s listening history. It’s one thing to have an application suddenly know your music taste better than your best friend, but it’s another when AI-generated music pops up in the mix.

Taylor Swift went through all those love stories and heartbreaks to write some of her most iconic songs, and fans love her for this. It can be argued that AI-generated music disses the creation journey and conveniently takes the shortcut.

These examples, when examined through the lens of “what AI gives and AI takes,” can result in different perspectives, depending on who one asks. One is that AI amplifies and makes logic and research better, but also diminishes creativity in producing original outputs.

AI definitely opens doors to possibilities. It frees humans from repetitive, menial tasks so they can devote more time and energy to higher value problem solving. When applied with good intent and governed with safety and protection at the forefront, it elevates human experience.

However, overuse and overdependence is tantamount to taking away the value of patience, the perseverance of working through drafts, and the joy of brainstorming and collaboration — interactive processes that make the creation process more meaningful.

AI has reached new heights over the last 18 months and the race is on to make the most value out of it within the bounds of laws, moral and societal guardrails. Since all can agree that it is not going away, it is in everyone’s best interest to lean in, learn about it and use it.

With humans in the loop, people should continue to explore, make progress in many more areas using AI as a tool, and, ultimately, decide how much humanity poses to gain or lose.

Tricia Ong is a Technology Strategy & Transformation Senior Manager with the Technology & Transformation practice of Deloitte Philippines. For comments or questions, email phcm@deloitte.com.