ChatGPT: Should technology dictate human beings

Every day newer coinages are evolving in the digital landscape. Technocrats welcome them since they are improvisations of existing concepts, devices, or applications. That heralds a newer concept for developing another one, which can have a greater impact on mankind. A peep into the history of technology helps us to understand the old technology, its working, benefits, and shortcomings or the limitations while discerning the benefits of the improvised one.  

I was a little taken aback the other day, when I read, what I am painstakingly doing, of course with great creative elan, can be done by using an App, a euphemism for technology, with the help of Artificial Intelligence.   Friends, here comes the world of ChatGPT.  

For the uninitiated, let me define what is ChatGPT. It is a natural language processing tool driven by AI technology that allows one to have homo sapiens-like conversations and much more than what can be done with the chatbot. The language model can answer questions and assist you with tasks, such as composing emails, and essays, writing speeches, drafting important communications, and coding. The entire concept and development of the App is only at the trial stage and the developers/ researchers are seeking feedback from the users of the App to convert the same into a commercial venture like what Google, Facebook, and Twitter (now X) are doing. Does it mean that once the App is fully developed, can I prepare my own communications, speeches, and even the articles that I write without spending time and energy but by chatting with AI and culling out the relevant facts and information as suggested by the mighty AI, which can search millions or even billions of information stored and can come up with a brilliant piece without engaging my brain but collating vital information from powerful brains living or lived in the Planet Earth? Researchers of the App have already gone a great distance in developing apt questions that have to be asked to the GPT to get the relevant and most accurate answers, what should not be asked, making the App user friendly. They have also demonstrated how fast the App can give the answers, which human beings take a substantial length of time to find out from various sources.  

Does it mean authors like Earnest Hemingway, Victor Hugo, Jane Austin, and people of their ilk will be extinct in the coming years and their places will be occupied by numbers and notations created by AI to distinguish one work from the other? Those who doubt what I am writing now is far from true and a figment of imagination, can go to ChatGPT in Google and download the App and see it for themselves. For instance, if you want to name a book that you propose to write, consult AI giving what you have in mind, the broad contours of the book, the ChatGPT will process it and in seconds you will get thousands of suggestions what ought to be the name of the book. The only problem that you may face is how to pick up the name from several hundreds of suggestions that you may receive from the App. Now researchers are busy developing newer generations such as GPT4, which is faster, swifter, and can mine data at a faster pace to give more accurate and stimulating answers to the user.  

I often wonder whether such innovations taking place are good or bad. Let me not value judge it now. I will explain some contexts that triggered doubts about such innovations in my mind. The other day, I asked a little boy what is the multiplication of the number 9. His stock answer came: why did he by-heart such tedious things in his life while the calculator is there for that mundane work? If you are an entrepreneur like me, take a round to your finance department, you can see most of the young and not-so-young people sitting before the laptops, or PCs or smartphones to add or subtract or multiply numbers while carrying out their daily work chores.  I am sure one among them, probably a superannuated person but still clinging on to you either he or she does not want to sit idle or the company feels that his or her services are indispensable, may not be looking at any of those devices and doing what is expected of him or her with the help of brain power recalling the multiplication table learned decades ago while in the primary school.  

Why look for examples? While writing this piece, I am not even looking at either spelling or grammar since I know it will be auto-corrected by the system which has powerful software embedded to do so. I can also check whether what I write is properly constructed and can seek advice from the system as to how should I embellish what I write.  

I am not denying that it is only one side of the story. The other side is why should we use the circuitous method and exacting methodology to remember things, calculate numbers, write a letter, create a poem or a novel, or prepare a hard-hitting speech if they can be done through less cumbersome methods through devices and Apps. It is a fundamental issue that has to be deliberated by educationists, policymakers, and others.  I am sure that such things would be discussed in more detail while drawing up our educational policy and pedagogy. One thing I strongly believe is that our children should not be bought up as robots doing things mechanically. There should not be any compromise on developing their creative and emotional faculties. Whatever may be our technology breakthroughs in AI, ingraining creativity should be our guiding principle in the school curricula .  

Out of sheer curiosity, I tried to know what is Open AI GPT (generative pre-trained transformer)  and the people behind the organization engaged in  AI research. I could gather a lot of information on ChatGPT, its later versions et al, but not who own it since no single person owns the company headquartered in San Francisco. But I inferred a lot of people are working behind the scene, aggressively involved in research, which they claim in their mission statement. They are committed to ensuring artificial general intelligence that would lead to a point where AI becomes smarter than humans. I am a little confused as to what that meant.  

Personally, I do not have any qualms if the researchers from across the world use their pooled intellect and insights to create social good, such as eradication of poverty, ensuring good health to the people, brokering peace and tranquillity, a world free of terrorism, easy access to education, and the like.  What is the guarantee that such pious thinking is behind them get polluted or if that technology gets into the hands of people with dictatorial dispositions? They would use it to further their strength and authority. How can such technologies become the property of humanity and not of a country or a group of people? A causal reading of the mission statement of the Open AI mentions that it is used for ensuring better writing, improving communications, preparing speeches, aiding creativity etc. What is the guarantee that smart technologies become smarter than average humans? Can such techniques be extrapolated to create villains who can ride roughshod over humanity? I feel there are a lot of unanswered or still-to-be-answered issues in the overall framework of Open AI, where society, scientists, governments, etc. have to pool their thoughts to clear the air, particularly that relates to the criticism that such technologies block the creativity of the human beings. Millennial shades of civilizations have instructed us that ‘man’ is the centre of every activity in the universe; the rest of the things are created to help and aid human beings. Should we envisage a societal architecture where technology becomes the epicentre of our civilizational existence? I do not have an answer so also many others like me.