Gen-AI Cannot Replace Us Humans because Taylor Swift

All of us are being wooed by Gen-AI and Chat GPT.? The world is in love with being in love with ?Generative AI and Chat GPT.

Executives to students and even older, retired Baby Boomers can describe GPT’s magic.? I tested my own 73 year old mom to measure her knowledge of Chat GPT.? I was surprised that extemporaneously even my Boomer mother can accurately describe the cutting edge tech of Chat GPT and can retell the Sam Altman scandal.? (This is from the same lady that swore to me that computer viruses got into your computer overnight if you left it plugged in at night).?

When a technology is so ubiquitous because of its user-friendly nature it is labeled as “democratized”.? ?It means you don’t have to code or know a computer program to harness its ability.? Which builds up an incredible hype for a technology.? And there is a lot of hype for Generative AI.

The flip side is that for all of the hype, it has some problems and limitations which give us insight as to why us mere mortals remain pretty darn special.? Below I describe what Gen-AI is not capable of and how humans will remain as an important driver in most businesses.?

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1.??Chat GPT cannot CREATE anything new. The answer is in its name – The “G” in GPT is Generate.? This means that Generative AI is capable of considering hundreds of thousands of data points and generating something from those data points.? It is not creating something completely and totally new.?

?Compare this to hit music.? There is something magical and rare about Taylor Swift writing a song so dynamic and enthusiastic that when played, Swifties jumping and dancing shake the earth enough that it registers on the Richter scale.? You cannot ask Gen-AI to write you a song so magnificent that it will lead people to dance so hard the ground shakes.? That measure of creativity cannot be harnessed by Gen-AI.? Nor can comedic tik-tocks – generated by human content creators each day.? Gen -AI is not creative, aw-inspiring or very comedic.?

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2.??Chat GPT is not capable of entropy – The best case of widely known entropy is the ever-evolving Corona Virus or Covid.? About every six months a new strain takes over the world as the dominant strain.? This phenomenon is driven by entropy.? A random mutation shows up out of nowhere, just nature evolving and then by natural selection it survives and spreads.? The key here is that is something new is created that is random.

?Generative AI, again, generates from existing material.? There is even a theory that if Gen AI copies itself too much that the info will become sort of “watered” down.? This akin to making physical copies on a copy machines – like when you make a copy of a copy of a copy.? There is a term for this - “Model Collapse” by which the model copying itself with degenerate itself into uselessness.? Or kind of like the game telephone we played in school where the original makes sense but once it goes around the circle it becomes hilariously different than the original.

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3.??Chat GPT can’t be ethical.? Not that humans are known for their perfect ethics, but Chat GPT doesn’t have any.? Chat GPT will have no idea when something is racist or sexist.? It recycles what already exists in the world of data points (information).? If there is biased information, Gen AI will generate more biased content.?

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4.??Chat GPT cannot ever experience the Human experience.? It can only recycle. ??Influencers, songwriters and storytellers are successful because of their unique human experience.? Again, enter Taylor Swift, every time Taylor goes through a break-up or Beyonce is cheated on we get great music like “Red” and “Lemonade”.? Chat GPT has never been broken up with like Taylor Swift or cheated on like Beyonce.? Or knows the absolute harmonious joy of your first child being born.? Or the tragedy of losing a parent early.? The Dixie Chicks even joked that they didn’t become popular until their lead singer went through a heart-breaking divorce.? So can Chat GPT write you a paper?? Sure.? But it cannot take a lifetime of human experiences ranging from gut-wrenching tragedy to the pinnacle of exaltation and CREATE a new thing.?

?So what business implications does this have?? Take call Centers for example.? We should, theoretically, be able to exclusively talk to a chat bot and figure out our problem with our order or internet service etc.? BUT, how many of us insist on shouting? “CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE” into the phone with the ever-frustrating chat bot phone tree nonsense?? (I hilariously heard my dad cussing out one of these chat bots out once).?

?There is just a certain relief of reaching a human to help us solve a problem.? A chat bot will never “get” us or have any empathy for helping us with a problem.? So even though there is a massive industry built around how to make contact centers cheaper, faster and less human – we humans are still going to crave human contact because of our need to feel heard, understand and empathize with.

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5.??It hallucinates.? The term “hallucinating” still cracks me up but this term describes when Chat GPT just goes completely off the rails and spits our utter nonsense.? This happens when it sees a pattern that is not truly there, but thinks there is, and then just produces Gen AI word salad.?

Gen AI will not be replacing the human race anytime soon.? It may augment our work, but it has some serious limitations.? Generative AI and Chat GPT can find needles in haystacks we humans may never be able to find.? But it cannot draw from the endless myriad of human emotions and experience that drive us to connect, create and think critically about what is right and wrong.? Gen-AI is a incredible recycler of information, but I for one will always dial “0” for a customer service representative’s human touch.?

Tell me your thoughts about where Gen-AI is headed in the comments below. Argue with me or agree - either way I am happy to hear about it.

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