I came to Cleveland, Ohio, for the 50th anniversary of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention. I expected the hallways to be buzzing with conversations about AI, and they were, but not in the way I’d hoped. For the first two days, the phrase I heard most from my fellow journalists was “we must protect ourselves.” In session after session, the consensus was that AI is a danger, a threat, an enemy coming to replace us.

Then I had breakfast at Betts, the restaurant in my hotel, and a single conversation with my waiter gave me another perspective on the AI revolution.

As he brought me the bill, I asked Kevin Knestrick, 49, if he used AI. Haunted by the fearful rhetoric from the convention, I expected him to either rebuff me or launch into an anti-AI tirade.

“Not really,” he replied cautiously, then paused. “Actually,” he continued, “I used it for the first time when we changed the menu. I took a picture and uploaded it to ChatGPT and asked it to copy the text and prepare a message for a colleague. It saved me so much time.”

As he relaxed, he called over a younger colleague, Jamie Sargent, 31, and he introduced me a bit later to another younger colleague of his, Dawud Hamzah, 37. “You should talk to these guys,” he said. “They use it a lot more.”

He was right. It quickly became clear that for Hamzah and Sargent, ChatGPT is a part of their daily lives. They don’t see it as a threat.

The Power Users

For Hamzah, a bartender at Betts and a youth motivational speaker who founded his own empowerment association, H.Y.P.E. (Helping You Produce Excellence), ChatGPT has effectively replaced Google.

“I use it to build solid, well-structured PowerPoint presentations for my speaking engagements with students,” he told me. But its use extends far beyond his professional life. It’s his trip planner, health advisor, and personal coach.

“I just used it for my lady’s birthday,” he said. “I said, ‘I want something relaxing that has vegan friendly foods.’ It gave me a whole itinerary, a phenomenal itinerary.” When back problems flared up, he turned to the chatbot for help. “I asked it to give me specific home workouts and mobility exercises to relieve pressure from a degenerating disc in my back. And it did.”

Did it work? “Oh yeah!” he responded.

Sargent, a former special education teacher, has been using ChatGPT since it launched in late 2022. He used it to generate baseline lesson plans, saving him hours of work which he could then devote to tailoring the content to each of his students’ individual needs.

“I saved about an hour’s worth of time writing a lesson plan,” he said. I asked him if it felt like cheating. “No, because I would have done the same thing it did. It just did it faster than I can.” He dismisses the idea that teachers shouldn’t use it. “I’d say, that’s nonsense. We spend so many hours outside of the classroom working on our own stuff. If we can make it faster, the better.”

Like Hamzah, Sargent is also an avid travel planner, using ChatGPT to map out complex international vacations. “My brother and I planned a trip to Italy from Milan to Florence to Naples, and it basically showed us the map of taking a train from here to here, gave us good restaurants to go to, and then it told us how much it was going to cost.”

Both men hold a pragmatic view of AI’s future. They believe jobs will be lost, but that it’s on individuals to adapt. “If you don’t learn, develop, and adjust, you’ll fail, because it’s not going to stop,” Hamzah insisted. Sargent agreed, adding that the key is to focus on what makes you human. “I’m part of the experience, whereas AI is not part of that experience. Find a way to differentiate yourself from AI and make yourself valuable.”

The Cautious Converts

Kevin, who first introduced me to the group, represents a different demographic’s journey into AI. His use was born of pure necessity. “I was in a time crunch to get this menu to the printer,” he recalled. The AI solved his problem in seconds.

That single, surprisingly effective interaction transformed him from a non-user into a curious convert. “Now I’m much more open to any problem I have. I’m just going to ask it now,” he told me.

His regret over missing out on the Bitcoin boom has also made him wonder if AI could be a tool to help “the little guy” get an edge in investing. “I guess I’m from the generation where all the Wall Street fat cats make money, while us little people just get crushed,” he said. “How do we not be the little guy anymore?”

Their manager, Curtis Helser, 56, was also introduced to ChatGPT by his wife about a year ago. He uses it to refine important work emails, making them shorter and more professional. He isn’t afraid of it, seeing it as a tool that can be used for good or ill, just like a car. And he’s not worried about his job. “You have to be in the building,” he said with a laugh. “Kissing babies, shaking hands, that kind of stuff.”

I was stunned. At the restaurant, AI wasn’t a terrifying enemy; it was a useful, if imperfect, assistant. The younger employees had fully embraced it, while the older generation was more cautious but still open, integrating it into their lives at their own pace. They see the current panic as a movie they’ve seen before, recalling the fears that accompanied the rise of the personal computer.

The contrast with my colleagues at the journalism convention was stark. Perhaps those of us whose jobs are built on creating and controlling information see AI as an existential threat, while those in the service of people see it as just another tool to get the job done. The real AI revolution, I realized, wasn’t happening in the headlines or the panicked convention halls. It was happening quietly, in conversations like this, one practical problem at a time.