Beyond the Em Dash – Towards a More Conscious Conversation About AI
Updated: Mar 10
Written by Catherine Gomersall, Artist Coach
Artist, scholar, and educator, Dr. Catherine Gomersall specializes in collapsing the divide between media participation and observation. Leveraging new media technology and creative communication strategies to create meaningful connections between ideas, institutions, and audiences, she is regarded as an innovator in digital communications strategy.
Before I began building web applications and digital systems, I came from a background in the creative arts. For many years my work centred on artistic practice, visual culture, and the exploration of identity through digital media.
Over time, however, I began to notice patterns within arts institutions that made it difficult to pursue the questions that most interested me. The structures of leadership, funding, and cultural gatekeeping often shaped what could be explored and how far certain conversations could go. Eventually, I chose to step away from working directly within those systems and began focusing more on building digital tools and platforms.
Today, much of my work involves designing systems that incorporate artificial intelligence, including the artistic ones.
This shift has created an unexpected tension in my life. Among many of my creative peers, AI has become something to boycott or reject outright. For those of us who work with these technologies, that position can sometimes make it seem as though we are automatically advocates for them. But my engagement with AI is not rooted in sheer enthusiasm. It comes from a sense that these systems are rapidly becoming part of the infrastructure of everyday life.
Working with digital systems has made this increasingly clear to me. AI is finding its way into tools, platforms, and institutional processes across industries, whether we are actively using them or not. The question, in my mind, is no longer whether AI will exist or whether or not I should use it. I want to know how societies will choose to govern it.
In some ways, I think of AI a little like money. Over time, many people have tried to live outside monetary systems entirely. Some succeed for periods of time, but most remain indirectly dependent on the structures around them. AI may follow a similar path. Even those who try to avoid it may still find themselves interacting with systems shaped by it.
From my vantage point working with digital systems, it increasingly feels as though artificial intelligence is becoming one of the defining technologies of our time. Yet much of the public discussion surrounding it remains strangely superficial.
Increasingly, debates revolve around whether a piece of writing contains the stylistic fingerprints of AI: an em dash, a certain cadence of phrasing, a familiar structure.
I understand where this impulse comes from. As humans, we feel a strong need to be able to “spot the difference” between ourselves and the systems we create. But while we scrutinize punctuation, far more consequential questions remain largely unexamined.
As AI systems become embedded in governments, economies, and global infrastructure, the conversation we urgently need to be having is not about stylistic detection, but about responsibility and governance.
The longer I work with these systems, the more I find myself questioning the extremes that often dominate public discussions about AI. Some portray it as an inherently dangerous force, capable of producing harm simply by existing. Others treat it as a neutral tool, suggesting that technology itself carries no ethical implications.
Both positions oversimplify the reality.
I have come to think of AI as neither neutral nor inherently violent. It is a system designed, built, and deployed by human institutions. Governments, corporations, and organizations ultimately determine how these systems are used, where they are integrated, and what incentives shape their development.
When we focus on AI itself as the source of risk or harm, we risk obscuring the more important question: who is responsible for the systems being built and deployed?
Technology does not emerge in a vacuum. It reflects the priorities, structures, and values of the institutions that create it.
The real questions we should be asking about AI
If we want a more conscious conversation about artificial intelligence, we need to move beyond questions of authorship detection and stylistic signals. The more important questions are structural.
Who owns the data used to train AI systems? Who profits from the deployment of these technologies? What governance frameworks exist to regulate how AI is integrated into economic and governmental infrastructure?
These are not abstract concerns. AI systems are already shaping how decisions are made in finance, healthcare, education, policing, and national security. As these systems become more embedded in institutional processes, the issue is not whether AI is “good” or “bad,” but how power, responsibility, and accountability are structured around it.
Artificial intelligence should be understood less as a singular technology and more as a form of infrastructure. Like electricity or the internet before it, AI is becoming woven into the operational fabric of contemporary life.
The ethical implications therefore arise not only from the technology itself, but from the governance systems that determine how it is deployed.
Technologies can mediate human action. They shape possibilities, incentives, and
decision-making environments. But responsibility ultimately remains with the institutions and individuals who design, regulate, and deploy them.
A conscious approach to AI therefore requires more than technical innovation. It requires institutional foresight, ethical design, and governance frameworks capable of addressing how these systems reshape economic and social power.
Towards a more conscious AI conversation
Artificial intelligence is not simply a technological development; it is a societal one. The systems we build today will influence how decisions are made, how resources are allocated, and how power is exercised in the decades ahead.
If our public conversation remains focused on superficial signals (whether a paragraph contains an em dash or whether a sentence “sounds like AI”) we risk overlooking the far more consequential questions the technology raises.
A more conscious consideration of AI asks us to look beyond the interface of the tool and toward the structures surrounding it. It asks us to consider governance, accountability, and institutional responsibility.
As someone who began in the creative arts, I understand the instinct to resist technologies that appear to threaten human creativity and authorship. Those concerns are real, and they deserve thoughtful discussion.
But stepping away from the conversation entirely may not be the most effective response. The systems being built today will shape the cultural, economic, and political landscape of the future.
For those of us who care about creativity, culture, and human expression, the challenge may not be simply to reject these technologies, but to engage with them critically and consciously, so that the systems being designed reflect human values rather than simply technological possibility.
Ultimately, the question is not whether AI itself is good or bad. The question is how human societies choose to design, govern, and deploy the systems they create.
If you're a practitioner navigating the complexities of AI and its governance in your own business, you are already part of shaping how these technologies enter the world.
The systems being built today will influence how decisions are made and how power is exercised in the future. Thoughtful design, responsible deployment, and conscious governance are no longer optional considerations. They are part of the work itself.
Read more from Catherine Gomersall
Catherine Gomersall, Artist Coach
Dr Catherine Gomersall is a leading artist and trainer at the intersection of technology, visual culture, and human connection. Her art practice and scholarly work are rooted in her experience of personal trauma recovery through a commitment to creativity and mindfulness. Her multifaceted career spans teaching in art colleges and universities, presenting exhibitions globally, publishing scholarly and creative works, and founding her consultancy specializing in digital strategy and creative collaboration.
