AI for the Win?

The best part is that the world seems ga-ga over the opportunities these two programs give humans. And, of course, that means there is massive angst about how AI will finally usurp man.

I looked at one of the programs and then played with the other program for a few hours. And I can honestly declare, POPPYCOCK! AI will NEVER replace a human.

The app to make us look younger, sexier and like a marvel comic character did not hold my interest. But, yes, there is a tremendous fun and vanity factor here. And if you are passionate about playing with all the Instagram filters to make you look younger and crease-free, this program is definitely for you. It makes you look captivating in an artificial, plastic, ‘everybody looks the same’ kinda way.

What did interest me was the app to help me be (sarcasm warning) more intelligent, more learned and naturally more exciting and profound.

The program is called ChatGPT, and this is the link if you’d like to experiment. It is currently free, and you can ask any question to test drive it.

First, the good news:

Yes, it has a massive database of facts and figures and can answer many queries.

Without question, its existence will plague teachers and professors alike. Particularly with deciphering how what a student writes equates to what they researched, learned, and retained.

However, it will be a godsend for the lazy, time-strapped, unambitious and overworked business people. Imagine asking Professor or Doctor Google questions like ‘what should I do, if …..’ or ‘what are the odds that …..’ or ‘give me the top five reasons for …..’ Now that IS valuable.

Now for the bad news:

The answers it gives are essentially milque toast and very generic. It takes all available information, distills everything into an ‘on one side, then on the other side’s argument and spits out a boringly neutral statement. Not backed up by examples, nor with clearly articulated and cited sources and references and written in a form utterly devoid of expression and creativity.

Depending on the subject, the answers may be ancient, outdated, blatantly wrong, or even subject to interpretation. This means we humans must verify the answer or give it a ‘sniff test’ before we accept and use it.

And the terrible news:

We, humans, need to connect. With fellow humans, with feelings, with emotions, with ideas. Connection is what we are born to do. But, unfortunately, AI has zero connection, zero feelings, zero emotions, and zero new thoughts.

AI is about compiling, collating, synthesizing and then interpreting cold data. In a complex way. In other words, AI is just a tool. One of many we can use. Its end product does NOT engage, inspire, influence, motivate, captivate, cajole, invigorate, emphasize or even soothe.

Consequently, it cannot sell our products and services any better than we can. It can not form relationships for or on our behalf. It certainly can not develop new, creative or innovative solutions. (It is the people BEHIND the idea who are creative and imaginative)

So what IS it?

It is a shiny new toy that may save time at a high level for the research and compilation stages.

It will never make us more intelligent, learned, and engaging.

Our collective experience and wisdom come from our connections with other humans.

And AI will NEVER replace that.