AI and Original Thought
The One Domain Where AI Won't Replace Humans (yet)
Hello again! In today’s article, I will be sharing my views on AI - I’ve been postponing this article for a while. The reason being, as a technologist, I didn’t want to seem dismissive of something this novel and fundamental to how our generation will do pretty much everything. But I’m sharing it anyway, because it’s my personal point of view and that’s really what the crux of today’s newsletter - which ironically is now all fair game for training ML models - is all about. Note: this article is an opinion piece, not a technical guide.
A little back story:
I did my early education in India, following the ICSE system. Overall, it wasn’t too bad - I studied the World Wars, Indian history, Shakespeare, geography, physics, the usual - the requirements were very clear. Read, memorize and regurgitate.
Original thought and interpretation wasn’t encouraged. Follow the formula and get the grade. And that’s fine for the most part - no one ever said that they were producing great thinkers. It did what it said on label - got you the grades.
Later when I started the IB (International Baccalaureate) education in high school. I was forced to think. Suddenly, I was expected to come up with my interpretation of historical events and Shakespeare. I had to intentionally unlearn so much of what I knew was necessary to be successful and get the grades that I needed to get into the university that I wanted.
With both systems I did more than alright, but it’s safe to say that we have a clear winner as to which system prepared me for the real world. Right?
Coming to AI:
A couple of weeks ago, someone asked me to help review a cover letter. The first thing I asked them was, “Did you use ChatGPT?”
“Yes, why’d you ask?”
“Because it looks like you did.”
It was overly prosaic, confident and robotic - If you didn’t already know - that’s a classic tell that something’s been written by ChatGPT.
Similarly, We can’t turn to AI for new ideas. LLMs use everything that’s already out there and regurgitate it in a format that answers your questions. I won’t go into explaining how they work here, though I suggest reading this Substack for a good 101 on LLMs. Real original thought and opinion only stem from actually using your own intelligence, and not artificial intelligence.
Now, take a look at the images below, each generated by 3 different text to image platforms for the same prompt. You’ll see that the elements are all kind of similar. There is also for the most part, the lack of diversity (except for with Adobe).
As you can see, the quality of image is the key differentiator. However, at their core they are all the same - cool, futuristic violet tones, space imagery - all inspired by Science Fiction writings and movies over time. Sci-Fi as we know it today has evolved from generations of story telling:
Star Wars was inspired by The Lord of The Rings
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit was inspired by a German Opera Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen was inspired by German - Scandanivian Myths
As we go back into each of the works that inspired the last, you can see that each creator adds their own flavor to the work. They also portray society differently - the same norms and stereotypes don’t remain. Even take the MCU’s evolution on diversity for example.
Back to original thought:
Any genuine, original thought, or any breaking of stereotypes, as you’d say, would only come from creating original content, and not through regurgitating and recirculating tweaked versions of what’s already out there that’s been created by someone else. If we over rely on AI generated content, society will stagnate as original material will run out and slowly everything will look the same. As a result LLMs will just be learning from their own generated content.
The goal of today’s newsletter isn’t to say don’t use AI. Please use AI - but reserve it for when you don’t want to form an opinion. Do not use AI to guide or form an opinion. Use AI for mundane tasks or to summarize points of some long essay or article that you don’t want to read, but at the end of the day, after reading it - create your own opinion. Because it is with our own points of view and opinions that we can have some actual discourse.
Preserving original though in applications of AI:
As Product Manager, if you’re thinking of ways to leverage AI or GPT4 into your products - as most companies are - think about how it’s going to affect actual long-term engagement and interaction more than the short-term hype cycle. I’m not saying that AI isn’t here to stay, but be cautious of over-engineering with AI and depleting the personal touch that comes from real people building things. Your users will perceive the change in platform and find it less authentic or lose interest if they feel disconnected from real people. Again, that’s not to say that AI doesn’t have good applications. There are so many and we’re about to unlock many more. Some that are gaining traction lately are:
Chatbots for user support and troubleshooting
Sentiment analysis
Code and SQL generation & autocomplete
Personalized recommendations
Content moderation and safety
Though, one popular application that I am wary of is automated content generation. This application of AI specifically relies on predefined patterns and data inputs, which essentially leads to a lack of originality in the generated content. Going back to the example of the cover letter I shared earlier - a result from ChatGPT, no different from an ICSE eduction - was as expected, formulaic and repetitive. It is crucial now more than ever, to bring in originality and human thought into what we’re sharing online and how we build things. Otherwise, we’re not very far away from a world where our bots are just talking to each other and we have moved out of the equation entirely.
Here’s a screenshot of a chat that my husband and I have had by only using the recommended responses from LinkedIn. As you can see it doesn’t take long to get idiotic and un-engaging. Do we want to live in a world where our bots are talking to each other or where we are having meaningful connections and conversations with each other?
Think about that as you build your products, write your newsletters, and form your opinions.
That’s it for today! If you enjoyed this article, please like and subscribe for more! I love hearing from you - tell me what other topics you’d like me to cover.
Excellent article