# Book of the week: AI Humanity's greatest frenemy

An episode of [The Midday Report with Mandy Wiener](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1074292047), 15 Oct 2026, 7:36.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/5dcefa8e-00a9-4595-8ce1-a4ab0080f142/fe8d1a9a-a053-424d-9f40-a57500d5394b/80915d05-0e45-4c8a-a32f-b4e400b9b0fc/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=18146681-7843-46cf-9a9c-a57500d59fe7

Mandy Wiener speaks to Author of AI Humanity's greatest frenemy, Nicky Verd about her book AI Humanity's greatest frenemy. The Midday Report with Mandy Wiener is 702 and CapeTalk’s flagship news show, your hour of essential news radio. The show is podcasted every weekday, allowing you to catch up with a 60-minute weekday wrap of the day's main news. It's packed with fast-paced interviews with the day’s newsmakers, as well as those who can make sense of the news and explain what's happening in your world. All the interviews are podcasted for you to catch up and listen to. Thank you for listening to this podcast of The Midday Report Listen live on weekdays between 12:00 and 13:00 (SA Time) to The Midday Report broadcast on 702 https://buff.ly/gk3y0Kj and on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from The Midday Report go to https://buff.ly/BTGmL9H and find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/LcbDdFI Subscribe to the 702 and CapeTalk daily and weekly newsletters https://buff.ly/v5mfetc Follow us on social media: 702 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TalkRadio702 702 on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@talkradio702 702 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkradio702/ 702 on X: https://x.com/Radio702 702 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@radio702 CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:04] Speaker 1: It's a Thursday and on Thursdays in the Midday Report,
[0:07] Speaker 1: we speak to the author of a local nonfiction book.
[0:10] Speaker 1: And today's book is called AI, Humanity's Greatest Frenemy. And
[0:15] Speaker 1: it looks at the fact that AI is neither simply
[0:17] Speaker 1: good nor bad, but a technology capable of empowering and
[0:20] Speaker 1: harming us at the same time. The book is from
[0:23] Speaker 1: the author and digital futurist, Nikki Verd, in which she
[0:28] Speaker 1: describes artificial intelligence as something far more complicated, a technology
[0:32] Speaker 1: that can empower us and undermine us at exactly the
[0:35] Speaker 1: same time. Nikki, good afternoon to you, and thank you
[0:37] Speaker 1: so much for joining us.
[0:38] Speaker 2: Good afternoon. Thank you.
[0:41] Speaker 1: You call AI humanity's greatest frenemy. What is that word
[0:45] Speaker 1: capture about artificial intelligence that descriptions like revolution or threat
[0:50] Speaker 1: or opportunity don't?
[0:53] Speaker 2: It is both of those things. That's why I call
[0:55] Speaker 2: it a frenemy. Because right now the world is sort
[0:58] Speaker 2: of divided into two camps. On one camp, there are
[1:02] Speaker 2: those people that hate AI. They don't want anything to
[1:05] Speaker 2: do with AI. They want us to unplug it right away.
[1:08] Speaker 2: And then on the other camp, there are those that
[1:10] Speaker 2: celebrate AI so much that they cannot even imagine life
[1:15] Speaker 2: without AI. So these are two camps of people. And
[1:19] Speaker 2: so I wanted to... bring the word frenemy so that
[1:23] Speaker 2: they can understand that if you are too excited about AI,
[1:27] Speaker 2: you can be blindsided by the dark side. And if
[1:31] Speaker 2: you are so afraid of AI, you also miss out
[1:34] Speaker 2: on the opportunity. So let's rather see it as a frenemy,
[1:37] Speaker 2: rather than see it only as an enemy or as
[1:40] Speaker 2: a friend. That is the essence of the frenemy.
[1:44] Speaker 1: You argue that we need to get beyond the binary
[1:46] Speaker 1: debate about whether AI is good or bad. What do
[1:49] Speaker 1: you think people fundamentally misunderstand about the technology right now?
[1:55] Speaker 2: Absolutely. We really need to get off the binary, narrow
[1:59] Speaker 2: mindset of the technology itself, because it is the same
[2:03] Speaker 2: with everything, right? If you look at, for example, when
[2:06] Speaker 2: the car was invented, it didn't have a seatbelt. Initially,
[2:12] Speaker 2: it is when it was released to the public or
[2:15] Speaker 2: to the market that they realized, oh, okay, this thing
[2:17] Speaker 2: can actually kill people faster if there's no seatbelt. And
[2:20] Speaker 2: then as time went on, they realized, okay, if we
[2:23] Speaker 2: could put in an airbag, the number of fatalities could reduce, right?
[2:28] Speaker 2: So I believe it's the same with artificial intelligence. And
[2:32] Speaker 2: many people are afraid, but also misunderstanding the fact that
[2:35] Speaker 2: this is a new technology, and humanity is still figuring
[2:38] Speaker 2: out how to put guardrails around this technology. So I
[2:43] Speaker 2: always give that example of a car that when it started,
[2:46] Speaker 2: it is not what it is now. Now cars have
[2:48] Speaker 2: all these fancy things that haven't completely eliminated accidents, but
[2:54] Speaker 2: there has been so much progress in that regard.
[2:57] Speaker 1: One of the most provocative ideas that you raise in
[2:59] Speaker 1: the book is the danger of what you call AI-induced stupidity.
[3:05] Speaker 1: I love that. Are we at risk of becoming less
[3:07] Speaker 1: intelligent because machines are becoming more intelligent?
[3:11] Speaker 2: Absolutely. There are those people too. But I call it
[3:15] Speaker 2: AI-induced stupidity. And on the other hand, there's also an
[3:20] Speaker 2: argument where I vindicate AI. I feel like, okay, AI
[3:23] Speaker 2: is not totally to be blamed for this because a
[3:25] Speaker 2: person who has always been lazy to dig deeper, AI
[3:29] Speaker 2: is just going to amplify that, right? And a person
[3:32] Speaker 2: who has always been a deep thinker, AI is not
[3:34] Speaker 2: going to take that away from them. Remember, AI is
[3:36] Speaker 2: a tool that amplifies whatever already exists in us. So
[3:41] Speaker 2: if you've always been that person who is very meticulous
[3:43] Speaker 2: in how you do things, very deep thinker, you want
[3:48] Speaker 2: your ideas to be expanded, AI can help you amplify that.
[3:52] Speaker 2: But for those that have always been people that are
[3:55] Speaker 2: very lazy in how they approach things, they do things
[3:58] Speaker 2: on a surface level, AI is also going to amplify
[4:03] Speaker 2: that level of laziness. And the thing with AI is
[4:07] Speaker 2: that once it amplifies your laziness, It is so polished
[4:11] Speaker 2: that you think that you are so brilliant, but you
[4:14] Speaker 2: are not. Hence, I call it air-induced stupidity.
[4:17] Speaker 1: You also write about truth and reality at a time
[4:20] Speaker 1: when AI can generate these extraordinarily convincing fake images and
[4:25] Speaker 1: voices and video. So we don't know what to believe,
[4:29] Speaker 1: and if seeing is believing no longer works, how do
[4:31] Speaker 1: we navigate this world where we really can't trust our
[4:35] Speaker 1: own eyes or ears?
[4:36] Speaker 2: Absolutely. I love that. I had a session with the
[4:39] Speaker 2: RM team two days ago and we were talking about
[4:43] Speaker 2: risk management in financial institutions, right? And this is one
[4:46] Speaker 2: of the things that I highlighted, talking about seeing is
[4:50] Speaker 2: no longer believing. In the past, when you saw something,
[4:52] Speaker 2: it meant it happened. But in this age and time,
[4:56] Speaker 2: you can rely entirely on what you saw because it
[4:59] Speaker 2: could be air-generated. Evidence can now be air-generated. People are
[5:03] Speaker 2: generating also things on the internet. It's real, but It
[5:07] Speaker 2: is really not real. How do we navigate this? It's
[5:11] Speaker 2: a slippery slope, to be honest. It's going to be tough.
[5:14] Speaker 2: I don't even think the world is ready for what
[5:15] Speaker 2: is coming. But in the book, I have given some
[5:18] Speaker 2: high ways in which we can navigate this. One of
[5:22] Speaker 2: the things that I like is be skeptical. You know,
[5:25] Speaker 2: in the past, there were people that they're always doubting
[5:27] Speaker 2: and always very skeptical of things. And we looked at them,
[5:30] Speaker 2: why are you always doubting? That is a skill. You're
[5:35] Speaker 2: doing nothing at face value. That is how we're going
[5:38] Speaker 2: to navigate the world in which we are already entering
[5:42] Speaker 2: right now. Take nothing at face value. If someone is
[5:45] Speaker 2: calling you, be sure that if that person is calling you,
[5:47] Speaker 2: if your husband is calling you, double-check that it is
[5:51] Speaker 2: really a husband. If your wife is calling you, double-check
[5:54] Speaker 2: that it is really a wife. Your family, maybe it's
[5:56] Speaker 2: your mom, your dad, double-check everything. And I believe, and
[6:00] Speaker 2: I also mentioned in the book, that people should have
[6:02] Speaker 2: some sort of a safe word or a code you know,
[6:05] Speaker 2: to verify institutions, especially in emergency cases, because now criminals
[6:10] Speaker 2: can call you and sound like your family member, can
[6:12] Speaker 2: sound like your husband or your wife, but it is
[6:14] Speaker 2: all air-generated, right? So you can have some sort of
[6:17] Speaker 2: family code or any institution, some sort of code to
[6:21] Speaker 2: verify it when it comes with something. If they cannot
[6:24] Speaker 2: generate the code, okay. It means they are not who
[6:30] Speaker 2: you think they are, even though there are times where
[6:32] Speaker 2: maybe the code can also be fixed or hacked. But
[6:35] Speaker 2: for now, we are entering a world where we have
[6:39] Speaker 2: more questions than answers, but there are ways in which
[6:42] Speaker 2: we can just rely on common sense and pause and
[6:47] Speaker 2: slow down. Not everything has to be done immediately. In
[6:51] Speaker 2: spite of the urgency in which the other person on
[6:53] Speaker 2: the end of the line is pushing, just slow down
[6:56] Speaker 2: and ask, is this still normal? Is this real? Who
[6:58] Speaker 2: can I verify this with before you authorize, especially when
[7:03] Speaker 2: it comes to financial stuff, right before you authorize any transaction,
[7:06] Speaker 2: just pause and think. So at the end of the day,
[7:09] Speaker 2: AI is very intelligent, but some of the things that
[7:11] Speaker 2: we save us with just basic common sense, to be honest.
[7:14] Speaker 1: Nikki, thank you so much. Nikki Verde is the author
[7:17] Speaker 1: of AI, Humanity's Greatest Frenemy, in which she's arguing it's here,
[7:22] Speaker 1: it's here to stay. It's neither good nor bad, but rather,
[7:26] Speaker 1: how do we harness this extraordinary potential without surrendering the
[7:29] Speaker 1: very qualities that make us human? And that's it. AI
[7:35] Speaker 1: is very much a reality.

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