Generative AI (ChatGPT): what should it make us think to get the best out of it
What makes us special is that we are unique (each and one of us)
It is all over the tech news, and probably should be. The technology is worth noticing and has disruptive capabilities. Everyone is talking about and playing with ChatGPT from OpenAI, as an example of the overarching field known as Generative AI (or technology).
Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that can create or generate new content or data that is related to the existing data set. Generative AI is used to create new content or data from existing data sets in an automated way. Generative AI can be used to create new images, videos, audio, music, text, and other types of data. Generative AI can also be used to enhance existing data sets by adding new features or data points to them. Generative AI can help to reduce manual effort and time needed to create new content or data. Additionally, generative AI can be used to optimize existing data sets by allowing for more efficient data manipulation and analysis. Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize the way data is processed and used, and is therefore an important development in the field of AI.
Full disclaimer, the above definition was the very response of the Beta demo playground by OpenAI, when asked to ‘write a summary about Generative AI’. It is quite impressive, isn’t it?
But do you notice anything else?
I don’t know what you think, but to me it comes across as quite bland as well. Just a description. And obviously that has utility in certain contexts. But content is more than that. Or at least it should be – in many other contexts. Perhaps where it matters more – like in inspiring people for action, for instance.
So, here is the deal to me when it comes to this sort of technology…
I get it, and I fully understand the hype and the potential – and have nothing against it or think is wrong or that it has no place whatsoever. But in my humble opinion, we need to remind ourselves that there ‘ain’t’ substitute for human thinking.
They are tools – thus a useful efficiency gainer in bounded applicability. Nothing else, nothing more.
Unless we are willing to accept and constrain ourselves to only living in a sort of diluted, ‘mediocristan’ kind of world, where we can only expect supposed normal, standard things to happen.
But guess what? This ‘ain’t’ how we got this far, as a species. Ironically, if we would have fully settled ourselves to ‘mediocristan’ we probably wouldn’t even be able to get to build such technology in the first place.
On the contrary, it is because many of us dare to live more into ‘extremistan’, or the world of exceptions and acceptance of the unpredictable, and dealing with it in creative fashion. Pushing the boundaries and the envelope. Applying our evolved and inherent human intelligence and ingenuity.
I hope it is clear this isn’t about bashing the technology and its potential of disruption, or anything like that. But rather an ode for us not to get ourselves fooled in the process that this can be a trustworthy substitute to what has taken us this far technologically, out of our creative power but also gaining efficiency applying technology to remove burdens of mundane activities, and making certain things faster, or easier, or cheaper. And that is what it should be all about.
What makes us special is that we are unique (each and one of us).
by Rodrigo Sperb, feel free to connect (I only refuse invites from people clearly with an agenda to ‘coldly’ sell something to me), happy to engage and interact