Chatbots Aren’t the Problem. We Are!
They are in the news — every day and all over. Chatbots are doing homework, writing novels and poems, taking exams, solving mysteries, fooling people, sometimes fooling themselves. It’s incredible — but everyone is worried. It doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t we be celebrating?
Judging from the news cycle, most people seem to be worried or outright scared. Schools are blocking the new tools from their network — or considering restrictions. All kinds of jobs and systems are under threat: Musicians (AI can compose, play, record, perform), writers — ‘the end of essays’, journalists (AI writes better stories), the education system, researchers and paralegals (AI finds and summarizes facts and data faster) and so on. Sometimes I wonder if the mainly negative attitude in the news is caused by journalists feeling threatened.
Just a feeling, but here’s the question that keeps lingering: Haven’t we been here before? Discovered some new technology, waded through scaremongering and doomsday prophecies and not only survived but thrived? Think about it. Radio would kill newspapers. Movies would kill theatres. TV would kill radio and movies. From Spinning Jenny to streaming — every significant technological advancement has been a threat. For a while. Is ChatGPT and its likes any different?
