AI & ChatGPT...See any problems?

Hello out there in LI land…I have been thinking about something recently and wanted to share it to see if anyone out there has a similar perspective.

ChatGPT, AI, remote worker, quiet quitting, etc. etc.??How does all this strike you???

To me, it feels a little like the transition I had to make from the slide rule to the calculator.??Let me explain.

I walked into my room in the Lost 50’s after Christmas Leave (USMA grads will understand this…for everybody else think “dorm room”) There, sitting on my desk, was a brand new calculator.??In an instant, the slide rule I had been using since high school was an outdated antique. Equally suddenly, I didn’t have to really understand how numbers worked.??I could just plug them into my little handheld machine, and “POOF” out popped the answer on a set of red, glowing diodes.??Fortunately, I had been taught math the old-fashioned way…memorization.??So, I already had a good grasp of numbers.??Future generations? Not so much.??In fact, my daughter refused to memorize because her teacher told her she didn’t have to.??Why clutter up your mind with all this information that the machine already possesses.

There’s the thing that is bouncing around in my head.??Why mess with the hard work of learning new stuff if there is a machine that can do it so that I can be free to…..??Free to do what exactly?

It seems we are losing something.??That something is the building of personal foundations of knowledge.??Learning basic math, how to write a coherent sentence, how read a chemical compound, how to do your job.??This is all hard work that builds one’s personal knowledge foundation.??But it’s so much easier to let the machine do it. It is the personal knowledge foundation that makes it possible for an individual to grow and thrive.??

What is thriving???In this context thriving is building skills that makes a person capable of ever more complex thoughts and activities.??Thriving is making of yourself somebody who is useful both to yourself and society.??How does one learn to thrive if a machine relieves one of the hard work of learning? How does one thrive if they are not present in the workplace to receive feedback that is necessary to developing ever-higher levels of competence?

We don’t start life with all the necessary knowledge foundations that we will need to become functioning successful adults.??They are earned.??They are earned through the hard work of time spent studying, learning and mastering hard ideas and tasks until they become part of who we are and how we behave.??Mastery does not come from staring at a computer screen.??Mastery comes as the result of testing and experimentation, failing, receiving feedback and trying again.??How is a person to achieve mastery if he or she never receives constructive feedback about their inadequacies relative to something they are trying to do?

Specifically, with the advent of ChatGPT and AI, I can predict the end of learning how to write by the generations behind me.??Why learn how to write coherently if the computer can do it for me and better??Doubtful???Did you know that, in many school systems today, cursive writing is no longer taught???Why??Because we all type into a computer now, don’t we???No more getting a bad grade because of sloppy handwriting!

In the world of writing, what is lost is the development of individuals who learn through hard work how to put their thinking to the test by exposing it through the written word to critique. The future will not contain Shakespeare’s, Dostoyevsky’s and Twain’s.??They will not be there because our society at some point has decided that the skill the great writers possessed is no longer necessary and took steps to eliminate their development.??After all, can’t a machine do it just as well?

The capabilities of the computer age are astonishing.??I take advantage of progress in this area every day.??I feel we are just beginning to breach the potential of what is possible.??But, I do wonder; just because something is possible should we always do it???At the same time, I admit, I don’t know how to govern it.??

It seems this emerging technology is chipping away another piece of what makes us human.??Once gone, I’m concerned it is impossible to get back.

I'm curious to know what others think...g.