"Just put it into GPT, get it done now."
... is what one of our seniors told us while we were working on a project together. It's not like the task at hand was a complicated thing to do. It would have taken a little more effort. A little extra research. A little more time spent.
But no. Just put in the prompt, decode and simplify the jargon it spews out and pretend like it was all you to begin with. "Easy, huh?"
But it didn't feel right. How could it? It doesn't feel like my own thoughts, my own ideas anymore. It feels..... distant? Fake? I don't know the right word.
Can I describe it as wearing someone else's skin? But there is no real person on the other end. It's just a bunch of code, but now credited with being smarter and better than us all. Than real, flesh and blood people. Smarter? Sure, who am I to deny that. But better? Hmm, food for thought. Or maybe your next prompt.
Am I being too dramatic? Maybe, lol. I've always had a flair for the theatrics and strange soliloquies.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a hypocritical traditionalist. If I was, I'd have to go back to the dusty archives and search up every single thesis I wanted by hand. I'd rather not. Google is my friend, and I love it.
There is nothing wrong with using AI to get information. Get it to search up your niche papers if you want. Use it to summarize that mind numbingly boring paragraph you have to copy onto your lab record. Use it to decode complex definitions and topics. Ask questions. Get simplifications. Learn, grow, thrive, improve.
But never let it think for you. As that is when we step into a dystopian future. When a bunch of code takes in your ideas and cooks up its own extrapolation, clipping your own wings without you knowing.
The human mind has incredible potential. Technology is something that has been born of that potential and has helped aid the same. But this. This feels like it sets a limit. A ceiling. Reaching for the stars feels a little too distant.
I can't help but feel like I can't breathe. Everything feels too surreal. I can't help but feel disordered. Like this reliance is against the natural order of things.
But I'd like to hold myself accountable for thoughts like this. People may have felt the same when electricity was discovered. Even more intense feelings arose when the internet boomed. Now, this is normal life. I type my thoughts down and post them onto the internet. "Hypothetical much?"
You can't be a researcher if you are afraid of research. The long nights, the deadlines, the questions, the insanity of it all. That is the exhilaration we came here to seek.
Getting aid from technology is fine. That is how it should be. That is how science progresses. They go hand in hand. But is that really how the path we're on is headed?
'Artificial intelligence' implies the existence of real or natural intelligence. What about that now? Weren't we raised to be wary of artificiality?
I don't know why I feel this sense of dread. I don't know if it's unfounded. I know nothing. But I can't help but feel the end of authentic thinking is upon us.
