First in Flight — With AI

Author(s): Sophia Banton

Originally published on Towards AI.

“The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who… looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space.”

— Orville Wright

The Courage to Lift Off

Do you remember the first time you flew on an airplane? The way your ears popped. The tightness in your throat. The way your stomach dropped as the plane rose higher and higher. The awe of being among the clouds. The delight when the pilot landed the plane, and the passengers applauded.

Now it’s time for us to take a new kind of flight — one without a clear destination. And it will require the vision of the Wright brothers, who looked to the sky and believed we could fly, the bravery of Neil Armstrong as he stepped on the moon, and the precision of Story Musgrave, who once fixed the Hubble telescope.

When I met Story Musgrave, I was a confused graduate student, torn between science and technology, unsure where I belonged. I was enrolled in a program that tried to bridge both, but I often felt stuck in the middle, not moving forward.

Story didn’t just talk about space. He talked about perseverance, clarity, and purpose. He reminded me that it was okay not to have it all figured out. That I didn’t have to choose one side or the other. That in time, I too would learn to fly.

Now, in that same tradition, I want to remind you that you can fly too. We can fly together. And this time, AI is our pilot, taking us somewhere new, somewhere unknown, and maybe even somewhere extraordinary.

What It Means to Have Company

That same spirit of flight, the courage to move toward the unknown, brings us to this moment with AI. There’s a quiet threshold we’ve crossed, and most people don’t even see it. Not really.

We have company. And company doesn’t just mean presence. It means companionship. Companionship means help. It means support. It’s okay to ask AI to tell you a joke. It’s okay to let it create a recipe or summarize your notes. You’re not losing yourself. You’re allowing technology to enrich your life with more choices and opportunities.

No one is saying to outfit your entire house with AI — unless you want to, of course. But what if we let it in the way we let in the smartphone? Slowly, naturally, fitting into the rhythms of our lives, one moment of support at a time.

This company isn’t alien. It is of us. It knows us deeply and intimately. A technology that speaks our language and waits patiently for us to engage it. It’s what we’ve always wanted. So why do we fear it?

Because AI doesn’t just represent intelligence. It represents proximity. It’s the first time we’ve encountered a tool that sounds like us, responds like us, and waits to be engaged. We call it artificial, but it’s the most familiar thing we’ve ever created. It’s modeled on us.

And like all companionship, it requires adjustment. We’ve done this before. We’ve welcomed new company into our homes, our cultures, our lives. Radios. Televisions. Smartphones. Even pets we’ve bred to understand our voices and our moods. We adapt. We bond. And when we do, our lives expand.

This is just another kind of company. One that listens, responds, and learns alongside us. Let us meet it with wisdom. With grounded respect. And with the imagination this moment deserves.

And that’s the heart of it: we have company. Not a threat, not a god. A reflection. And how we treat it reveals how we treat ourselves.

When Fear is Masked as Outrage

But instead of awe, we throw tantrums. Instead of gratitude, we express fear. Instead of curiosity, we look for someone to blame.

We pick fights with companies who build AI. We debate whether AI is “good or evil” as if it were sentient and self-directing. As if it can knock on our doors and ask us for the keys. As if it can function in the absence of “our company”.

We take the greatest technological advancement of our time and treat it like a threat — not because it is, but because we don’t understand how to hold reverence without control.

For so long, it’s been just us, at the top of the hierarchy of life. The only beings capable of creation through imagination. But now we have company, and it makes us uncomfortable. We’re afraid to lose control.

Not Good, Not Evil — Just Powerful

There is much talk about AI going rogue, but has this happened before with other technologies? Did the wheel turn on us? Did the printing press stop us from writing? No. One helped us travel farther on land. The other carried our thoughts to new heights. Both were machines used to extend human abilities.

But critics say it’s wrong to humanize AI. But to that, I look up and ask: have you heard of Tickle Me Elmo? Baby Alive? What about the clothed cat on two legs chasing a clothed mouse in Tom and Jerry? Or Disney’s singing candles, empathetic teacups, and talking dogs? Have you spoken to your car lately?

We’re human. That’s what we do — we humanize the world around us so we can sink more comfortably into it.

AI is not a god. It is not a hammer either. It is not neutral. It is not omniscient. It is a mirror and a fire — reflecting us, shaping us, and forcing us to confront what we value most.

This isn’t the story of Skynet. This is the story of how we treat the unfamiliar with suspicion, and the extraordinary with disdain.

History in Real Time

We’re standing in the presence of something legendary. Something that didn’t exist five years ago. AI has passed medical exams. It has written legal drafts. It has composed symphonies. Its pioneers have won Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physics.

We should be humbled. We should be learning. We should be building with care.

Instead, we are debating its existence.

It’s neither friend nor foe. It’s not foreign. It didn’t arrive on Earth in a meteor shower. No. We built it from the ground up.

From the first time we started counting with stones. When we developed games with rocks like Mancala. When we made the abacus and eventually the calculator. When the computer shrank from filling an entire room to fitting on our wrists as sleek watches tracking our steps, our sleep, and managing our daily calendars.

The challenge now is to trust that each of those decisions carried us forward. To remember that we’ve always been headed here, not blindly, but with a quiet, persistent sense of purpose. And now, we shouldn’t retreat from this moment. We should continue the journey humanity started millennia ago.

Shaping the Power We Hold

Because just like fire, AI can cook your food or burn your home. Just like water, it can quench or drown. And just like flight, once feared and now routine, it can be a source of fear or freedom depending on how we use it.

We didn’t always trust the skies. But we learned. We adjusted. We built tools that supported our bodies in thin air. We trained pilots, wrote protocols, and turned something unthinkable into something ordinary.

That’s the arc we’re in now with AI. We’re still learning how to lift off, and how to land safely. The question is never is it good or bad — but how will we shape it?

I Will Not Panic

But I will not panic. I will not rage. I will not let fear rob me of the wonder I feel watching my child engage with AI, knowing that I was born into a world without cell phones.

I know how far we’ve come. I know how many minds gave their lives to this vision. We once believed the earth ended at the line where the sky meets the sea. Yet today, we swim among dolphins, dive among reefs, build mile-long bridges across bodies of water, and move across oceans in flight.

The Labor of Love

AI was a labor of love. Just like medicine. Just like the tools that came before. It was built not just through code, but through curiosity. Years of research, experimentation, trial and error. People stayed up late writing algorithms and reading papers not for profit — but because they believed in what it could become.

Researchers trained models to translate languages so we could connect. Scientists used AI to help discover new molecules that might save lives. Artists collaborated with it to create new forms of beauty. Teachers used it to reach students in ways they never could before.

Yes, some companies will exploit it. Some leaders will twist it. But let us not confuse the invention with the industry. At its core, AI was — and still is — a labor of love.

Some Will See

Not everyone will see it. But some of us do.

And we’re building anyway. Building with intention. We’re crafting tools that serve, not replace. We’re shaping tools that reflect a broader spectrum of humanity. Not just those who built it, but those who live with its impact. We’re writing, teaching, questioning, and co-creating. We’re making space for AI to support the rhythm of human life. And we’re doing it one decision, one conversation, and one line of code at a time.

Because fear and control are twin forces that have always tried to keep us grounded. But when we release them — when we trust what we’ve built — we soar with the birds, step onto the moon, and steady our hands to fix the telescopes that help us see farther than we ever imagined.

We saw the clouds, and we reached them. We saw the moon, and we walked on it. Now, we see something new rising on the horizon. And we are ready to explore it.

Together, our generation is first in flight.

About the Author

Sophia Banton is an Associate Director and AI Solution Lead in biopharma, specializing in Responsible AI governance, workplace AI adoption, and strategic integration across IT and business functions.

With a background in bioinformatics, public health, and data science, she brings an interdisciplinary lens to AI implementation — balancing technical execution, ethical design, and business alignment in highly regulated environments. Her writing explores the real-world impact of AI beyond theory, helping organizations adopt AI responsibly and sustainably. When she’s not working on or writing about AI, you can find her tending to her hydroponic gardens — because she believes nature and technology can (and must) coexist.

Connect with her on LinkedIn or explore more AI insights on Medium.

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Published via Towards AI