On ChatGPT, Fear, and Art
I just read that more than 1 million people signed up and used the new AI ChatGPT in the first 5 days. (Personally, I haven't tried it yet because I've been having fun writing and making art on my own.) People are seriously freaking out. Evidently, any and all text that was once created by humans is now dead. Whole systems are to be burned down. Robots are ruining lives and we need to shut down everything AI before all of society collapses.
Maybe.
And what if that wasn't true? What if ChatGPT is revealing fears for us to look more closely at? What if this is all a tremendous gift, an invitation for us as humans to grow?
When I pause to look at the fears people are sharing, what I see are realities of today's world that we often obscure.
From the fear that people will read and believe everything ChatGPT writes, I see:
The world today is extremely complex. There is more data and information than any one person can make sense of. Decisions have to be made with a tremendous amount of ambiguity.
Many of us (myself included) lack a solid understanding of the science and statistical methodology used to study the world. As a result, we take things at face value depending on how they line up with our worldview and our openness to new views.
We don't want mistrust and lies running our world. *But what do we want?*
From the fear that students will use ChatGPT to write essays and invalidate our entire schooling (or interview or [insert industry that uses words]) process, I see:
Our shared understanding is that school is for testing that a child can accomplish a basic set of memorization- and process-based tasks in a particular set of time. Student success is measured by their ability to comply with this process. Teacher success is measured by the number of students they compel to comply with this process.
We have built a school system that values efficiency over all else (I'd assert our entire culture is built the same way). Teachers are required to spend as little time as possible evaluating the competency of every student in order to move them along to the next step in the process.
That system already has holes we've been scrambling to fill for some time and how those holes have grown into massive craters.
We don't want people to cheat that system and win when they don't deserve it. *But what do we want? Really?* *What do we want school or interviews to be for? What were we already missing from the current system that these tools have simply magnified?*
From the fear that humans aren't ready for the limitless production of text or visuals, I see:
We have outsourced our trust compass to external sources -- culture, news, the internet. We doubt our own ability to decide what to believe and empower our own feelings and reality.
We have lost faith in our innate, divine capabilities as creators of our world. We are more focused on our limitations than we are on our strengths.
We don't want fear and propaganda to erode all trust. *But what do we want?* *What is trust for in our society? In our world?*
These fears are all looking at the cliff their authors say they don't want to fall into. Meanwhile, the car is moving closer to the edge rather than toward the road we all want to go down.
I'm inviting us to look at the road.
First, by remembering what fear often has us forget: WE MADE THIS THING. Human engineers imagined, designed, developed, and created ChatGPT and the other AI tools that have recently come to be. The bots learn from human-generated words, images, and history. The words they create come from human questions and prompts. We're driving the bus. We always have agency in that. Always.
Secondly, by getting clear -- individually and collectively -- on what we really want in our world. I invited a number of questions above in response to the fears I listed. If we could have a choice (and we do!), what would we have? How would we work and live together? How would we communicate and teach each other?
It's our individual responsibility to ask those questions and then act accordingly. Technology doesn't change that.
Third, let's ask ourselves how these tools can be of use (since we control them) in creating that world we want. People clearly want ChatGPT or else 1 million of us wouldn't have signed up the first week. And there is no way that all of those people are using it to cheat on essays, subvert trust in collective systems, or research a topic for some life-changing decision. What beautiful stories can it be trained to tell?
Fourth, aside from ChatGPT, let's use the fears it's unearthed to choose into something better.
If we're worried that trust is eroding, how can we conspire together to create more trust? I vote we spend more time together, actually together. In conversation about topics that scare us, that reveal our true desires and challenge us to open up. Trust comes from a willingness to be vulnerable. High-volume school essays after often not that, though they can be. ChatGPT-created text will never be.
If we're worried that trustable sources are scarce, how can we find more trust in ourselves? I vote we spend more time disconnected from media and connected to our bodies, minds, and spirit. Move through the old stories that keep us skeptical, find what's truly ours, and bring it to the surface. Learn to love ourselves so much that a piece of text could never sway us.
If we're worried things are speeding up more than we can handle, how can we conspire together to slow down? I vote we have meals together without phones. We cook in community. We go for walks or hikes and settle into our bodies' tempo rather than one dictated by an outside force.
Let's stop looking at the cliff. If we want a beautiful world, let's make it.
My take? These tools are calling for us to evolve into who we're really meant to be. AI is simply inviting us to grow. It's inviting us to ask ourselves what we want to do when the basics are already covered. If we didn't need to worry about that, what then? Where can our creativity take us? What's possible when we get to create whatever we imagine?
What would you make if you could make an image from anything in your imagination? What story would you tell if it could flow out of you so quickly it surprised you? What gift of yours is wilting inside, waiting to be birthed?
I get that such questions are scary. Possibility is accompanied by fear. The excitement of the new is accompanied by fear. There is safety in staying where we are. And. Change is happening. We get to influence how.
Your story is waiting to be told. Your art is waiting to be displayed and shared. Will you be courageous enough to bring in a new world -- the one you want to live in?
Photo credit: Dall-E, of course, from a list of parameters I lovingly offered it