About a month ago, I decided to see what all the fuss was about with the new chatbot everyone was talking about. So, I entered a simple request into ChatGPT's text box:
Write a short review for the book "Nothing Higher."
It came back with a statement that there are many books with that title, so it didn't know which one I was referring to. I modified the request to:
Write a short review for the book "Nothing Higher" by Sunday Faronbi.
In less than 10 seconds, it spat out the following:
"Nothing Higher" by Sunday Faronbi is a powerful and thought-provoking book that challenges readers to question their beliefs and values. The author shares personal stories, insights, and reflections on various aspects of life, such as love, spirituality, success, and purpose. Faronbi's writing style is engaging and conversational, making it easy for readers to connect with his message. The book is not just a self-help guide, but also an inspiring call to action for readers to live a meaningful and fulfilling life. Overall, "Nothing Higher" is an excellent read for anyone seeking personal growth and a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them.
On the surface, this seemed like an okay review. But I immediately noticed something that was missing from it.
Given that the main subject of the book is humility, I was surprised that the word did not show up in the chatbot-generated review - not even once. Not a single one of the 104 words it came up with was "humility," "humble," or any of its other synonyms.
That immediately made me suspicious of how useful this thing is. Of course, it didn't actually read "Nothing Higher" before spitting out that review. It couldn't have. It would have been impressive if it had done that, but it didn't. It most likely just scoured the internet for reviews that others have written about the book and then came up with its own version of a review.
Despite my skepticism, many others were already touting how incredibly intuitive and smart ChatGPT was before I gave it a try. It was said to have passed a final exam in the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School's MBA program. Others said they've used it to write code in different programming languages. Some claimed to have used it to write cover letters for job applications.
While these feats are impressive, I have bigger concerns than the fact that its review of a book on humility did not include words like "humble" or "humility." Can you tell I'm still hung up on that?
Yes, I am, but I've got a bigger fish to fry with this bot. I think it will erode away one of the key things that make us human.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, says its mission is "to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity." Honestly, I'm skeptical about how well that mission will be realized.
While there may be some immediate benefits, I seriously doubt that the long-term impact of chatbots like this would be beneficial to humanity. And I have good reasons for this, so bear with me as I explain my thoughts.
With all that ChatGPT has been able to do within the first few months of its release, this is only just the beginning. Models like this are designed to continuously learn and refine the quality of what they produce. In fact, OpenAI has already released GPT-4, which it claimed on its website, "surpasses ChatGPT in its advanced reasoning capabilities." GPT-4 is now available with a US$20 monthly subscription.
As you can imagine, other companies wouldn't want to be left behind, especially when they can cash in huge with subscriptions. Microsoft invested heavily in Open AI (rumors say the investment is up to US$10 billion) and is now using ChatGPT in its Bing search engine. Last week, I received an email from Google asking me to sign up for Bard, its chatbot version. You may have received a similar invitation.
Other tech giants may be coming up with their own iterations soon. What this means is that the rat race has already begun with each chatbot trying to outdo the others. I won't be surprised if they start trashing one another in their responses.
But here's why I think this bot race will be harmful to humanity: we could eventually lose our ability to think.
Thinking isn't something many of us tend to do regularly, but having these AI bots will only exacerbate an already bad problem. Our higher ability to think is one major things that distinguishes us from other animals. Once we stop exercising our thought muscles, atrophy would set in, and I’m afraid the human race will just get dumber and dumber.
The smart ones amongst us have tapped into the power of creative thinking to create AI systems like ChatGPT and others like it. Interestingly enough, these chatbots could end up causing us to lose the creative thinking potential that created them. If that's not self-destruction, I don't know what is.
I'm not trying to be a prophet of doom, but it seems to me that if we're not careful, this particular move towards AI chatbots may actually portent the end of human thinking.
It could be the end of humanity as we know it.
So, how will you ensure that your mind doesn’t fall victim to the coming onslaught of AI chatbots?
What intentional creative thinking exercises are you doing to guarantee that your mind stays sharp?