“At the moment, it’s looking a lot like the end of essays as an assignment for education.” ChatGPT writes better than most people. I asked it some typical school test questions yesterday and I realized: It also teaches better than most teachers.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04397-7
AI bot ChatGPT writes smart essays — should professors worry?
The bot is free for now and can produce uncannily natural, well-referenced writing in response to homework questions.
Obviously, ChatGPT doesn't replace school, but for mid school level scientific questions I'd argue that, structurally, it does a better job than frontal 1 to 20 teaching.
The whole group and power dynamic at school is gone. As a pupil can ask specific questions and you're never bored, and you never need to feel inferior or stupid. No one else hears what you don't understand.
A dialog structure is a much better setting to learn for the individual than the typical lecturing one to many approach.
The destructive potential of ChatGPT powered disinformation is simply terrifying.
AI imagery, it works, looks and feels carcinogenic. Social Media x AI is total hell. ChatGPT *is* scary.
There are some interesting parallels with chess computers. Chess computers don't play chess, they simulate chess. They now simulate it better than the world champion. The same can happen with AI generated content. Only the very best in their field will be able to use that technology in a controlled way.
ChatGPT has already reached a level where in many cases, I'd rather communicate with it than spending time with an average, superficial social media, bestseller book or news article. Because most human created content is not more original or insightful than AI generated content. Most information online already is of lower quality than what ChatGPT does. It's a lot of mindless, heartless recycled data without much thinking. Often it's less researched and less comprehensible.
It's terrifying how some of the most ardent critique against the quality of ChatGPT can be easily redirected at the vast majority of human writing. It's recycled, unorgininal, not felt, not properly understood, not structured and without empathy for the reader. The inevitable crisis this will unleash not only on teaching, programming, writing, learning and politics could be seen as a challenge. A challenge to be understand better, think clearer, to express ourselves with more empathy.
If the parallel with chess holds, AI won't automatically destroy everything or lead to a better world. Chess computers didn't destroy chess but they didn't make it more interesting either. They changed the game in a way where people now play like computers, and they undermined the trust in the originality of the player. All we talk about in chess these days is "Who is cheating?"