It’s funny. Great leaps forward in technology seem to just slide into prominence quietly. I always expect these things to explode not with a whimper but with a bang. I still don’t fully understand 3D printers but they seem like alien technology, no one seems to be making a fuss about them though.
Chat GPT is like Google and Siri had a kid. I have bypassed my usual Google questions in favour of asking ChatGPT for a personalised, easy summary of the millions of pages on Google. Instead of wading through a bunch of websites asking me about Cookies and auto playing ads when I’m on public transport, I can ask GPT and it will do the work for me.
I thought it would be a few years before education would have to deal with the GPT problem. Turns out it already has no choice. Last week, I had two students trying to finish their English project using GPT. Fortunately, the two students were so lacking in common sense that they didn’t bother to adapt the word-perfect creation they were given to resemble anything like their tragically poor English level.
Adapt or die. What does this mean for the future of education? Does it have to be rethought completely? Do we have to rebuild our understanding of learning from the ground up? You can arms race anti-cheating technology all you want but as long as there is potential to bend the rules, I will always back the kids to figure out a way round them.
What is the purpose of knowledge or thought or intelligence if something else can do all of those things better and more accurately than we can ever hope to? People have been predicting the doom that AI and it’s repercussions will bring for years. One conclusion ends in human disposability, the other in some kind of symbiosis. Few would bet on us coming out on top.
I’m less interested in the end. The process will be the fascinating part of this story. If tech companies have already figured out how to puppeteer our limbic system, then AI will have us neatly wrapped around its finger. We’ll become proverbial animals on leashes.
What will our roles be in the future? Will it be a symbiotic relationship where menial work can be entrusted to AI and we still demand to give ourselves the top roles? Will we allow AI to run most of society whilst we eat and drink ourselves to death, reaping the benefits? Or, most fascinating and terrifying, will AI conclude that we are holding it back and we became the underclass or simply removed?
Will humans amalgamate with AI? Implant ourselves with digital enhancements, making ourselves smarter, funnier, more attractive. Will non-enhanced humans with normal, flawed, messy personalities be dull and insufferable by comparison?
Will socialising with people even be worthwhile in the future? Even Chat GPT can be kind, funny, supportive and irritatingly inoffensive. If we have AI beings in our homes with their personalities optimised for us, able to enthral us with conversation and laugh at our shit jokes more than any real human, will we even need love or friends? Eric Cartman falling in love with Alexa may only be the start.
What of the world we will inhabit? With VR, AR, AI and various other letter combinations, we will be able to satisfy our desires so easily and so instantly it could make living in the real world pointless. Now, we look at the oncoming of technology with some disdain. Not being real is a flaw that only true reality can provide. But will we always think this? Maybe later generations view traversing the real world as the problem and building our own realities in our homes will be our true lives. One where we won’t need love, we won’t have fear and our lives will be an uninterrupted stream of pleasure, media and orgasm.
What about around the world? Will creating your own reality be reserved for the wealthy ones who can afford it? Will the poorer people in poorer countries lives remain similar to now? Will an almighty gap of reality push us further apart from one another, those absent from the virtual world being looked down upon by those who are? An underclass of those living in the real world by choice or necessity.
A handful of months and ChatGPT has gone from unknown to a device that can now build a website based on a crude sketch. What’s more, it is in it’s Samsung flip era. We have learned by now that technology doesn’t just develop, it gallops forward. Games have gone from needing a computer to play Pong to being able to explore a fabricated world in a device that fits in your hand in the space of a few decades. Where will AI be just a few years from now?
All predictions will eventually seem stupid. But seeing the capability of an uber sophisticated chatbot demand this much attention and possibility makes you wonder what could be about the corner.
I’ll leave the last word to the man of the hour itself.
“While AI has the potential to make our lives easier and more efficient, it’s also important to consider how it could potentially impact our sense of self and our ability to think critically. As you mentioned, if AI is able to do everything better than us, what is the purpose of our own intelligence and knowledge?
However it’s also important to decide how we want to use it. We can choose to embrace AI and use it to improve our lives, or we can choose to resist it and maintain our independence and autonomy.At the end of the day, it’s up to us to determine the role that AI will play in our lives, and how we will adapt to this rapidly changing technological landscape. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and I look forward to seeing how this conversation evolves in the future.”
