“It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined, Who went to see the elephant, though all of them were blind. That each by observation may satisfy his mind.” – John Godfrey Saxe, “The Blind Men and the Elephant”

I’ve been thinking about this fable a lot lately as I ponder how artificial intelligence is changing our world. AI excites us with its possibilities as much as it terrifies us with its reach.

In the poem, six blind men each observe a part of an elephant with their hands, and come up with definitive proof (to them, anyway) of what they feel: a fan, a wall, a rope and so on. The point of the poem is that human knowledge is often limited to only that we think we know, and people often insist on an absolute truth when there are other notions that could be just as true. John Godfrey Saxe acknowledges this at the end: “Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong.”

That is AI right now. A giant unknown that is many different things to many different people—is it a positive tool to enhance research and creativity, or it a foreboding machine that will replace the need for human thought? While the answer, I think, leans much more towards the former than the latter, the concerns of many are valid, exacerbated by just how little we understand of how AI works.

I am the CEO of a small Connecticut technology company, VRSim, that uses AI daily and is developing AI tools for training. I have watched with great interest as the Connecticut state legislature has begun discussing legislation to regulate AI without limiting Connecticut’s businesses—particularly smaller businesses, which need to operate on a level playing field or risk getting lost in the shuffle. Senator James Maroney, D-Milford, has done work leading his caucus in crafting this legislation, and I am confident his efforts can set Connecticut as a national leader in this area if done right.

As our team stated in our testimony in favor of Senate Bill 2 — the large AI bill being considered this year by the Connecticut General Assembly — AI is transforming industries at an unprecedented pace, and Connecticut has the opportunity to be a leader in advanced technologies. And for that to happen, AI regulation needs to be fair for businesses large and small.

What does this look like? Clear regulations instill predictability into a landscape that is still as vast as it is unnavigated. Through clear compliance standards, fair oversight that keeps small businesses on the same level playing field as the giants, incentives for responsible AI innovation and application of the technology and a prevention of monopolization by only the biggest technology companies, we have a chance to truly make this work.

AI is a tool designed to enhance human effort and bolster human thought, not something to be feared. The abilities of ChatGPT and other AI applications can certainly appear daunting when you observe just how fast they can work and the limitless amount of information they are capable of producing, but the same could have been said for the internet 30 years ago and smartphones a decade later. These days we can hardly exist without those essentials, and AI very likely will be just as entrenched in our work and personal lives before too long.

We need to embrace it, albeit strategically. And Senator Maroney’s bill allows us to do that.

Connecticut becoming a leader in AI policy means fostering competition, innovation and development, but is also means well-defined and equitable regulations. We may not know what the full playing field looks like just yet, but we know where we could be headed, and we know AI is too important to let fear of the unknown guide us at this inflection point.

Like the blind men and the elephant, we cannot be so insistent that our limited view of AI is the absolute right and all else is an absolute wrong. And we need to work together—as Senator Maroney and his colleagues have repeatedly said—to craft sensible legislation that provides the protections we need without hamstringing our ability to do the work we need to do.

In other words, let’s make sure we first have a full picture and understanding of the elephant, which, truth be told—like the poem—most of us haven’t really seen yet.

This Op-Ed was submitted to the Hartford Courant and published online on March 28, 2025 and in print on April 1, 2025.