I assure you that this was written entirely by a human
It wasn’t that long ago that AI was an easy target for ridicule. You may remember the meme format, “I forced a bot to watch 1000 hours of a TV show and then asked it to write its own episode.” It’s meant to poke fun at the limitations of AI — the minor elements it focuses on, the context it leaves out, and the unintentionally humorous results.
And while the above tweet is still good for a cheap laugh, it’s no longer accurate given the recent rise of consumer-facing AI that’s being used to outline essays, troubleshoot computer code, and create photorealistic images. These technologies are so promising that they already have universities moving away from essay assignments and illustrators wondering if they’ll be the next group to lose their jobs to automation.
The AI tools getting the most attention right now are what’s known as generative AI. Whereas a search engine like Google answers queries with existing online content, generative AI models use machine learning to study massive amounts of data in order to predict answers that sound or look like the billions of examples they’ve processed.
With a text generator like ChatGPT, conversational responses come from predicting the next word in a sentence. Think the autocomplete feature in a search bar but on Adderall. You can ask it to explain the theory of relativity at a second grade level, to turn a description of your product into ad copy, or even to write an essay explaining how the Jimmy Carter speech you’re about to feed it builds an argument that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should not be developed for industry.1
Image generators like DALL-E work similarly. You input a contextualized prompt like “a Salvador Dali painting of the Simpsons” and it creates a never before seen image based on those parameters. Other prompts featured on its homepage include “a bowl of soup that is also a portal to another dimension, digital art” and “a Shiba Inu dog wearing a beret and black turtleneck.” While Google would do its best to find photos or art that already exist on the internet, DALL-E is doing its best impression of the millions of examples of each element it’s seen.
ChatGPT and DALL-E are fun, innovative, and, yes, a little scary, but in the near term, the panic over lost jobs or sentient robots isn’t warranted. For one thing, they’re only as powerful as the examples they study. Take away the constant influx of scholarly, creative, and humorous work created by humans each day and the progress stops. Left to their own devices, these devices are not only incapable of advancing the culture, but they sometimes still get basic math formulas wrong.
That doesn‘t mean we can’t use them to our advantage. In the same way that anyone can now build their own website with a service like Wix rather than hire a software developer, this is another sign of the progress that enhances rather than replaces human judgment. That’s why I plan to use these technologies to their full “How can I help you?” advantage while letting my personality and experience, two of the few things we can’t yet outsource, continue to lead the way.
A real SAT practice essay prompt from the College Board. Here’s what ChatGPT came up with in response:
The passage builds an argument to persuade that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should not be developed for industry by using personal anecdotes, historical context, and logical reasoning. The author describes their personal experience camping and hiking in the Arctic Refuge and the impact it had on them, describing the area as "America's last truly great wilderness." They highlight the unique and diverse wildlife present in the area, describing a once-in-a-lifetime experience witnessing the migration of thousands of caribou and their newborn calves.
The author also provides historical context by mentioning that the Arctic Refuge has been recognized for its "wilderness and wildlife values" by past presidents and was protected by legislation signed by the author themselves. They also mention the opposition to past proposals to open the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling by the American people and the Gwich’in Athabascan Indians.
Lastly, the author uses logical reasoning to argue against development in the Arctic Refuge. They state that the potential benefits of oil drilling in the area, providing 1-2% of the oil consumed in the country, are not worth sacrificing the unique and valuable wilderness and wildlife present in the area. They suggest alternative solutions, such as conserving more oil by driving more fuel-efficient vehicles. The author ultimately argues that preserving the Arctic Refuge in its pure, untrammeled state is the "greatest gift we could pass on to future generations."