How SpongeBob's "Magic Conch" is a prophetic tale about AI dependence

"All hail the magic conch!"

If you haven't watched the SpongeBob Squarepants episode, "Club SpongeBob," it may be worth 5 minutes of your day. Check out the link at the end of this article and tell your boss that you're doing research on both the dangers of avoiding, and over-dependence on AI.

Originally aired in July of 2002, the episode tells a story of how our hero, Squidward, finds himself completely lost in the wilds of a deep, dark kelp forest with his annoying neighbors, SpongeBob and Patrick. With no food and no hope for rescue, Squidward despairs. But SpongeBob has the answer: his magic conch shell.

Like a Magic8 ball, the magic conch is a toy that gives seemingly random short answers to questions asked. SpongeBob and Patrick follow the shell's instructions like it was the Oracle at Delphi. "The club always takes its advice before we do anything!"

When SpongeBob recommends that Squidward consult with the magic conch, he's not having it. "Oh, yeah, that'll happen. Right after I consult the magic toenail."

SpongeBob: We must never question the wisdom of the magic conch!

Patrick: The shell has spoken!

Saturday morning cartoon-style misadventure follows, with Squidward ignoring the magic conch and trying to survive on his own, with poor results.

Meanwhile, SpongeBob and Patrick follow every random, out-of-context instruction provided by the magic conch, and bounty literally falls out of the sky.

Starving, slightly mad, and alone in his conviction that blindly following the advice of a soulless toy shell is ridiculous, Squidward finally gives up and joins the devotees of the conch.

OK, that's fun, but an allegory for AI?

With kids in their 20's now, they were the right age to have memorized every episode of SpongeBob and, in doing so, drill it into the minds of their mother and me as well.

It seems like we're deep into the AI hype-cycle, so every 5 minutes there's another post, podcast, or video (including mine) talking about generative AI. In my head, which apparently stores way too many cartoon plots, I'm starting to hear "magic conch" when someone says "ChatGPT."

Have you tried using magic conch for that?

Magic conch just passed the bar exam!

X% of tech jobs will be replaced by magic conch.

Magic conch has spoken!

Six months from now we'll be doing things with AI that we haven't even imagined today. And I think we all realize at some level that it's not a good idea to blindly follow instructions and life advice from an AI magic conch without some critical thought.

On a deeper and more interesting level (yes, I just said that about SpongeBob), the episode is about autonomy and exclusion. Squidward fights the idea of using the conch and finds himself left out in the cold. Even though he feels it's wrong to follow the conch and give up his autonomy - which he perhaps equates to his humanity (or squidmanity in his case?), he eventually does give in because those that do are much more successful with less effort.

It's easy to imagine a time in the very near future where those that cannot or will not leverage AI will find themselves left behind. Organizations that can effectively use these tools will be able to do more with less, giving them a strong competitive edge.

That's cool, but there are risks. I'm not talking about the risk of a Terminator-style Skynet emerging to wipe out humanity. I think the more immediate danger is more mundane: the proliferation of AI will allow us to over-rely on it in lieu of our own critical thinking, creativity and decision making.

And why not? It's so easy. Just ask your generative AI, "Given these parameters and this mountain of data, what's the best thing to do?" Or, "Write me an SEO-optimized blog post comparing this and that, listing these keywords and targeting that audience." And, it will probably do a surprisingly good job - maybe even better than me if I'm busy and don't really have the time or attention to devote to the task.

What's wrong with that? After all, they say that if someone can do a task at least 80% as good as you, then you should delegate it. And from what we're seeing, there's a lot of stuff generative AI can do at least 80% as well. So, why not delegate as much of our work to AI as possible, even the creative and critical activities? Our competitors probably are already there.

What's the answer? Should we be luddites and fall behind in the name of our squidmanity, or give in and use AI as much as possible? I don't know - I'm just a guy who watches cartoons in the middle of the business day. For me personally, I'm trying to be deliberate in my AI use. So far, I use it for complex analytics and summarization, especially where there is a lot of data to comb through, and I use it to come up with alternatives and scenarios that I may not have thought of on my own to help me make better decisions. It is a great tool, like a powerful virtual assistant. But I avoid it for activities that require creative or deep critical thought. Not because AI can't do it - but because it can do a pretty good (80%-?) job, and I'd be very tempted to use AI content instead of putting time and effort into it myself.

For example, instead of writing this post, I could have just told ChatGPT, "Write me a slightly clever article about SpongeBob's 'Club SpongeBob' episode and how it is an allegory for the dangers of over-reliance on AI. Incorporate some self-deprecating humor and a couple funny quotes." But, I think it probably wouldn't have been as fun as the one I wrote. We'll see though - as soon as I publish this, I'll ask ChatGPT to see if it does better than me.

If it does? "All hail the magic conch!"

You can watch the condensed episode from the official SpongeBob channel here: