ChatGPT is about to make us very stupid
Dumb and Dumber just got another sequel
Would love to know whether Google Maps, Waze, etc have made people's driving and navigation skills better or worse.
Because it would be a good indicator for the rest of civilization if we all become reliant on artificial intelligence to do the critical thinking for us. From what I've seen of drivers in the city, society may be a lot dumber for it.
Let me expand on this a little more - the internet was supposed to bring the entirety of human knowledge to the fingertips of all, in the end, we squandered that to post cat pictures, argue with people on social networks, and became vainglorious.
Then search came along to categorize and allow people to find that font of all human knowledge and wisdom a lot easier. What happened? We were sold adverts and the information was buried under distraction that paid more money to get to the top of your mind.
What ChatGPT might allow us to be is ‘more creative’ but in the process, we become lazier for it pumping out junk food content at a rate of knots - easy to create, easy to consume, and ultimately leaving us feeling empty. We'll ask for information and then accept what we're told because we don't know any better. We'll forget to ask the 'why' without trying to think about the question for ourselves.
For example - there are lots of clever prompt engineering tricks to get the best out of a large language model but is this really the level of critical thinking we devolve towards?
Instead of just asking ChatGPT for information, start an actual conversation with it. For example, if you're starting a consulting business in Topeka, instead of asking for the population, tell ChatGPT more details about your situation and ask for advice on reasons your business might succeed or fail.
Test your work ideas on ChatGPT by creating characters for it to play the roles of colleagues. Ask it to give counter-arguments as to why your idea is brilliant, or even invite historical figures like Steve Jobs or Einstein to make a case for your idea.
ChatGPT is designed for creatives, and it loves specific questions. Instead of asking general questions like "What are strategies for handling an annoying co-worker?" give ChatGPT specific details about your situation and ask for advice on how to handle it.
Talk to ChatGPT like a trusted friend. Don't be too formal or use technical jargon that might confuse it. Relax and have a conversation with it. This will help unlock your creativity.
Remember that writing is rewriting. Keep tweaking your prompts and questions to get different results from ChatGPT. Try different words, verb choices, and adjectives to see what works best. Don't give up on your ideas after the first draft.
One could argue that by becoming clever in prompting and asking questions of AI we learn from the process and that replaces the critical thinking we developed before, it’s just another form of it. But then one could also argue that we are having to dumb ourselves down to hold a conversation with an AI that is nothing more than an inquisitive child.
Humans have a bad habit of repeating history and not learning from it, and a superintelligence would relish the idea of 8bn unquestioning Morlocks at its disposal.