We need to talk about ChatGPT
I have paid only passing attention to the ChatGPT story even though, according to some of the more alarmist commentators, the technology could very well take my place in a few years. If it ever does, I hope someone notices.
Anyway, I saw some articles in the aftermath of the AI tool’s launch claiming students could soon use it to write essays for them. Worse still, ChatGPT would do such a good job that it would be incredibly difficult for tutors to detect they had cheated.
Now, I know there’s a perception that students pretty much just regurgitate facts and opinions they’ve read or been taught in their essays, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of writing different, distinctive and thought-provoking essays, it just means there isn’t much of an incentive to do so because most education systems make it less risky if they rely on formulaic responses instead.
This is true for so many forms of writing because a lot of writing is incredibly formulaic.
Why wouldn’t it be? When something works, our first instinct is to repeat it. A popular genre is replicated incessantly because it’s successful. There’s a constant push to find and adopt formulae that make popular books, films, music, TV shows etc, etc.
And the thing is that people don’t get tired of things being created to a formula. They enjoy those things because they are formulaic. In fact, they’re not just comfortable with a formula, they genuinely enjoy the anticipation of seeing it unfold in all its familiarity.
Technology loves the formulaic. The problem is that it often creates the frame that constrains creative endeavour, including writing. Think of the Internet, for example. Technology has created its own framing for the written word. Articles are designed to garner clicks and links, to rank higher on SEO ratings with a focus on particular keywords.
There are endless articles listing ‘five top this’ or ‘seven best that’. Do we really need them? What happens if there are only four things? Do you opt not to write about a topic or do you insert another spurious thing into the article to get to five? The formatting of articles on the Web to fit a formula that suits the search engines is creating a huge library but with an incredibly narrow level of variation.
Similarly, social media algorithms limit and constrain the information and choices presented to users, creating an echo chamber that reinforces and amplifies their prejudices. Worse still, because algorithms reward information and articles that pander to those prejudices, the pressure is on people who write and create to become more extreme – and more narrow in their focus – to gain attention and make a living.
What this means, overall, is that while technology promises to unleash creativity through greater freedom and expression, it’s often confined within the narrow parameters that suit formulae and automation. The natural conclusion of this compressing of creativity to suit the formulae and algorithms of technology is that it becomes much easier for artificial intelligence to emulate it.
So, yes, ChatGPT is clearly an important development in the AI story – and ours. It’s mainly a story of our own making but that doesn’t mean we’ll get to write the last chapter.
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers