Why the Heck Is Everyone Using the Word “Harness” to Describe Our Relationship with AI?

Can we please stop saying we're "harnessing AI"? It's such a weird word. You harness horses. Oxen. Maybe a particularly determined husky. You don't harness a chatbot that occasionally forgets what you asked it three sentences ago. I'm not standing in a field wrestling ChatGPT into a leather bridle before asking it to rewrite an email. I'm just… using it. And there's something else that bothers me about it. The word quietly assumes we're always in control. That AI is the horse and we're holding the reins. Maybe that's true today. Maybe it won't be forever. If anything, "harness" obscures the fact that, at some point, the harness could end up the other way around. Please stop it.