It was the first day of my senior year of college, and the professor was reviewing the class expectations. Cell phones must be put away. Do not speak without raising your hand. Use ChatGPT to write your final paper – wait, what?!
My classmates, all much younger than me, began to laugh and chatter amongst themselves. I had heard of the AI program via social media but had never used it. I was under the impression that it was a gimmick, used to help people come up with clever responses to text message conversations. I didn’t know it could be used to write papers. From the reaction of the people around me, I figured out that it was generally considered a form of cheating in an academic setting.
It took the professor several minutes to convince his students he was not kidding. He explained that AI is the future and humans must master it, not let it control them. He said if you’ve never used it, you are behind.
He compared using ChatGPT to commuting from campus to City Hall. If we were told to get up from our desks and go to City Hall, would we walk there? Or would we utilize the technology we have, such as Uber, to get us there quicker? If the end goal is to end up at City Hall, why does it matter how we got there?
I felt uneasy, slightly enlightened, but kind of offended. There were a lot of things I wanted to say. What if I walked to City Hall every day and you drove? Which one of us would be more physically fit and less lethargic by the end of the semester? There’s only one way to keep your body strong and healthy, and the same thing goes for your brain. It needs to be activated, used, and worked to prevent it from being reduced to Jello. I for one have been vigorously working on mine for decades.
I know AI can learn anything. It can be intelligent, funny, even emotional. However, when I write something creatively (you know, the old-fashioned way, with my brain), it is the result of thirty-seven years of unique experiences on an extremely specific timeline, all of which have molded me into the hilarious, witty, and wise individual I am today. No robot can replicate that. I’ve been through distinct situations that no other human has been through, and that no AI could ever know unless I tell it.
To prove this, I have decided to write my paper the traditional way, and then generate a paper by inputting my main ideas into ChatGPT and seeing what it comes up with. I’m certain the robot’s paper will not be as interesting or expressive as mine.
