“The rise of powerful AI will be either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity. We do not yet know which.” — Professor Stephen Hawking
Artificial intelligence. The mere thought of the vast possibilities it offers gives me the willies. I love most technology, and gadgets fascinate me, but when it starts to be about machines mimicking human thought and behavior? No, thank you.
I don’t pretend to understand the incredibly complex concepts involved with AI. I know it involves quantum computing, number-crunching, and math, but none of that makes sense to me. I’m a writer for many reasons, and chief among them is the fact that I can’t add beyond the basics required in blackjack and tipping in restaurants.
Whenever there is a discovery in science or technology, we hail it as a wonder of modern life. How amazing is it that we can cure disease, make businesses succeed more easily, cross an ocean in mere hours, and find our way in a new environment? Along with all of that, however, there is always a downside. AI in applications like ChatGPT has already been problematic in schools and universities.
What is a student learning if they can put in a prompt to ChatGPT about Shakespeare, and out comes a term paper on the theme of death and regret in “Hamlet?” Well, they’re learning to create something without having to really think about it, but is that what we want from education?
A friend compared the ability to get written work via AI to math students who use calculators. He asked me, “How is it different that someone in a calculus class can push a few buttons and get an answer instead of scratching out a long formula to get the same answer?” My reply?
“It’s different because I say it is!”
Obviously, that’s not why it’s different; I’m just sick of explaining that mathematical formulas are different from crafting a well-researched piece of writing that shows critical thought, a thorough understanding of the material covered, and an intelligent command of the language. Call me a snotty intellectual if you want, but I’m not a fan of pushing a few buttons in an app and calling it writing.
That doesn’t mean that AI is all bad. I love that my GPS app, Waze, can route me around traffic jams. It’s not currently in my budget, but those robot vacuums that zip around your house and clean while you sleep are an excellent way to use artificial intelligence. When you wake up, the machine is safely parked back on its base, charging up for the next task. That’s a pretty intelligent gadget.
I recently got a notice on my “smartphone” from my credit card company about a suspicious charge. It was an auto-generated email that said unless I indicated the charge was legit, they would deny it based on their analysis that it was fraud. Had I not seen this notice, the whole matter would have been handled by AI. The AI embedded in my app interacted with the bank’s AI, and I was just an afterthought. This is what our future could hold: one AI program talking to another AI program with no humans involved.
While some of the advances in this kind of technology will change our lives for the better, writing is not something that will improve with AI. Humans are wired to communicate, express ourselves, create, innovate, and grow. While technology is certainly part of that, it cannot create content that helps us connect with our fellow humans.
Word processors are an improvement over typewriters, just as typewriters were an improvement over handwriting, but computers will never create words that come from genuine life experiences. Words that describe how it feels to hold the hand of an old friend, what it’s like to welcome a child, say goodbye to a loved one, or describe a sunset will never come from “artificial” intelligence. Words like that need to come from a genuine place within ourselves, not a bunch of computer code.
Brenda Kelley Kim has lived in Marblehead for 50 years, and is an author, freelance writer, and mother of three. Her column appears weekly.