Home » ChatGPT and the loss of knowledge (of those who use it)

ChatGPT and the loss of knowledge (of those who use it)

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ChatGPT and the loss of knowledge (of those who use it)

ChatGPT is yet another “trend” which, like blockchain, NFT and their derivatives, will sooner or later disappear from the headlines (and from the professional qualifications of the “experts”). In the meantime, the alarms of millenarianists, Luddites, Canutes and catastrophists are multiplying, who never miss an opportunity to prognosticate on the “dangers for privacy”, on those for the loss of jobs caused by the use of AI to produce editorial content, studies and research, and on the “bias” that leads AI to utter inappropriate “oracles” or not in line with the politically correct. Then there are the heirs of Eliza’s “patients”, the software that in the 60s of the last century emulated a psychotherapist from the Rogerian school, who ask ChatGPT existential questions marveling at the answers and the “smart” ones who resort to such platforms by passing off the results of the automated processing (whether they are texts, images or sounds) of a theme as their own.

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The trait that unites this composite group of users is the intimate and irrational belief that ChatGPT, passing the duck test, is a “he” and not an “it” — a sentient being and not an object that sooner or later will rebel against They. The fact that interaction with platforms of this kind is more like a conversation than entering raw data into a search bar or into the fields of a “deterministic” database certainly contributes to the development of this bizarre idea.

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As long as this conviction, the result of ignorance and superficiality, remains confined to the individual and private sphere, never mind. It would not be the first nor the last unscientific and superstitious “obsessed” to populate the nights spent in front of the monitor to denounce plots and conspiracies based on microchips, planets with variable geometry and other amenities. However, when intellectuals, politicians and legislators take the same approach, the consequences are very serious, as demonstrated by the rambling text of the future EU regulation on artificial intelligence. We look forward to the moment of fixing the speed of light by law, complete with penalties for exceeding it.

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Certainly the implementation of AI systems can already produce results that put jobs at risk, automate activities previously reserved for people with particular skills, or analyze data by providing results in a more immediately usable way. But is it really a problem? And what should it be?

It is obvious that technology changes the labor market and creates unemployment in the sectors where it spreads. It happened, just to name a few, with that of steam, which revolutionized the world of the textile industry with Jacquard looms and that of transport; with electronics that made possible the construction of computer numerical control (CNC) machines and so on. However, despite the inevitable negative effects in the short term, no one has seriously considered blocking the use of new tools to keep jobs. With this approach, if they hadn’t gone extinct for some other reason, we’d still be hunting dinosaurs with spears and axes made of wood and stone.

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So why are AI applications so scary (to intellectuals)? A succinct answer is: because they demonstrate that the king is naked, and that much of what was presented as the result of superior sensitivity, intuition and ability can be achieved at the price of 15 dollars per cent prompt.

A more detailed answer requires, however, a more articulated reasoning. Until now, technological development had mostly affected “manual” activities, commonly (and erroneously) associated with non-“creative” skills. Now, however, it is precisely the sector of jobs based on “thought” that is under threat.

Suddenly, writers, (“digital”) artists, photographers, intellectual professionals and professional intellectuals discover that they are no longer indispensable because an object is (potentially) able to replace them. From their perspective this is an unacceptable option because the use of AI reduces the economic value of the “intellectual efforts” and the “years of study” necessary to produce results which, however, too often raise eyebrows in terms of quality. In other words, categories that thought themselves untouchable and intangible by the consequences of technological evolution suddenly discover that their role too —and not just that of blacksmiths, carpenters and workers— can be called into question. Due to the “AI’s fault” will there be fewer writers, journalists, artists, lawyers, architects and “intellectual workers”? Amen. Paraphrasing Humphrey Bogart’s famous joke in Deadline, “It’s progress, beauty. And you can do nothing about it, nothing!”

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In fact, there is nothing strange or inappropriate about relying on this technology to extract information, because the important thing is to be able to understand the result. Anyone who has to do a minimum of research in the context of their academic or professional activity knows well that the difficulty is not so much in finding material, but in selecting and organizing it. Therefore, if a tool facilitates these activities, so be it. However, having a semi-finished product is not enough because —and here, it is appropriate to say, the donkey falls— you need to be able to understand whether the results produced by automation make sense or not. The use of systems to extract and organize information, in other words, does not eliminate the need to critically evaluate the outputs. Which leads to the second problem: that of the consequences of thinking in terms of shortcuts.

There is an ongoing debate, not only in Italy, about the use of ChatGPT by students. There are those who consider it a teaching aid on a par with the calculator and those who, on the other hand, consider it a dangerous tool that impoverishes the students’ abilities. Similarly, the world of research is starting to denounce the use of AI platforms to write finished scientific articles. In the world of justice, behind the public declarations on “predictive justice” lies the unspeakable dream that the documents of lawyers and judges are written in full, away from the “public gaze”, by automated tools. And so on.

Faced with this scenario, one should ask what drives a person – a student, a researcher or a professional – to shirk their main duty: to learn to improve themselves and thus contribute to improving the society in which they live. What caused this widespread disinterest in knowledge that leads to favoring a very short-term result obtained in an artificial and unaware way – yes – instead of basing it on a broad and robust knowledge base?

There are no simple answers to such a question.

It can be hypothesized that one cause is the capitalism of appearances, where it is enough to appear competent and not really be, favored by the compression of time which requires the message to be “delivered” as quickly as possible and to generate “likes” and approval. Everything is consumed in a few moments: seconds or a few minutes on Youtube, something more —but not too much— on radio and television media. Skipping is the bete noire of music production: pieces can no longer have intros that are too long because the listener skips to the next track. We need to “hook” the listener and therefore it is better to use a familiar riff (perhaps because it is “freely inspired” by famous pieces) than an original idea and therefore at the risk of being ignored.

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The same distorted logic has also spread to training. There is no time to teach, because it is necessary to “close the fourth” (the didactic one, not the financial one) and therefore it is necessary to compress attendance and lengthen the time: a few lessons that each last a long time. How is it possible that a student can metabolize the amount of concepts that are given to him in this way? What study method could he have ever developed? What conceptual tools will he have learned to use?

It is not surprising that such an approach is also practiced in the world of work. The availability of pre-digested and homogenized information allows one to improvise as an “expert” or “competent” in the most disparate sectors. It is enough to be able to provide answers to the needs of the interlocutors, regardless of how or what they have been elaborated, and the real ability to understand what one is doing. It claims to do the soufflé bovinely following the recipe plagiarized somewhere. As long as everything is fine, everything is fine. Then it happens that the soufflé deflates and you don’t understand why. It is the distortion of relying on the previous one that prevents us from solving new problems, and that in the face of the series 2, 3, 5, 7 induces us to affirm with conviction that even 9 is a prime number.

In such a context, a context in which knowledge no longer has a role and value, it is clear that ChatGPT is a godsend for those who work incorrectly and fraudulently. If so, then, the merit of the spread of AI platforms is to have confronted us with the colossal hypocrisy of having elevated knowledge to the altar as a secular deity and then, once the celebration is over, returning to the soothing world of superstition , ignorance and fake it until you make it.

The AI ​​will take care of the rest.

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