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- Thoughtful Pieces on Generative AI and ChatGPT
[Skip this para to go straight to the content of this newsletter. Read on if you like to know how I used ChatGPT to come up with prompts for Midjourney to generate the image above. All very meta, I know.] I asked ChatGPT to act as a prompt generator for Midjourney's artificial intelligence program based on the prompt "What generative AI means for the future of work." ChatGPT returned four different options. I went with "A sleek, modern office building towers above a bustling cityscape, its windows reflecting the bright lights of the surrounding skyline. Inside, a team of employees sit at their desks, each one using a virtual assistant powered by generative AI to complete tasks and make decisions. The AI assistants work alongside their human counterparts, analysing data and providing insights that help streamline the work process." The image above is what Midjourney generated after a couple of refinements.
Much has been written about ChatGPT and more broadly, generative AI, since ChatGPT was released a month ago. It's a lot to take in.
Because of my interest in the future of work and the impact ChatGPT and generative AI has on jobs, I've spent hours going down the ChatGPT rabbit hole. Here are some of the best writing on the topic I've come across. Doesn't mean I necessarily agree with everything here, but these are thoughtful pieces that deserve a larger audience.
TLDR: Move over Siri and Alexa, there’s a new AI in town and it’s ready to steal the show—or at least make you laugh with its clever quips and witty responses.
TLDR: Perhaps the smartest approach at present would be to utilise both tools in parallel; making use of the efficiency of ChatGPT, whilst simultaneously maintaining one’s inquisitive integrity and critical thinking by doing the hard-graft research on Google ourselves.
TLDR: AI doesn’t take over jobs, it takes over tasks.
"In their excellent 2018 book Prediction Machines, Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb talk about the prospects for predictive AI – the kind of AI that autocompletes your Google searches. They offer the possibility that this tech will simply let white-collar workers do their jobs more efficiently, similar to what machine tools did for blue-collar workers.
If AI simply does things differently than humans do, then the complementarity will make humans more valuable and will raise wages.
For all the hype regarding large language models passing various forms of the Turing Test, it’s clear that their skillset is not exactly the same as a human’s.
Because of these differences, we think that the work that generative AI does will basically be “autocomplete for everything."
TLDR: The ability to discern truth from the glut of plausible-sounding but profoundly incorrect answers will be precious.
"Teachers could assign a complicated topic and allow students to use such tools as part of their research. Assessing the veracity and reliability of these A.I.-generated notes and using them to create an essay would be done in the classroom, with guidance and instruction from teachers. The goal would be to increase the quality and the complexity of the argument.
Plato erred by thinking that memory itself is a goal, rather than a means for people to have facts at their call so they can make better analyses and arguments.
As Plato was wrong to fear the written word as the enemy, we would be wrong to think we should resist a process that allows us to gather information more easily."
TLDR: This new wave of “generative” AI will not only give rise to new edtech market leaders, but also challenge longstanding practices and beliefs in teaching and learning.
I've played with ChatGPT a bit and I've tried pushing the limits of what it can/will do.
It won't role play as if it was drunk, nor will it explain the meaning of life.
The great thing about ChatGPT though - it has a wicked sense of humour.
ChatGPT named this chat 'AI Refuses Drunk Roleplay'.
If this essay resonates, you may want to check out issue 40 of Education & Catastrophe 'Will ChatGPT Make Newsletters Obsolete?'
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Till the next issue!