I read that NY Mag piece this morning and it describes so much of what I feel like I’ve been trying to contend with while teaching this semester and you captured a lot of my thoughts well in this piece. Hard to not feel like we are just sliding toward the Idiocracy future.
Couldn't agree with you more, Caitlin, especially after seeing a recent study that found a negative correlation between frequent use of AI and critical thinking skills!
I also really wish people would stop using it for research and suggesting other people do as well because it makes shit up constantly. If I remember correctly, the latest model of ChatGPT hallucinates answers more than 30% of the time? It's insane to me that people continue to trust it as a source of information. Wikipedia is a far more reliable source than this thing now, which is wild.
To end my rant: I saw a post on Bluesky a couple months back from someone who said they had asked ChatGPT to write their grandmother's obituary for them. It was around the time that I had also lost my grandmother and my family had asked me to write the obituary, which I did. Seeing that post just made me sick to my stomach. I could never pass on something that meaningful and emblematic of humanity to a machine, and I don't know if I'll ever understand the impulse people seem to have to do exactly that.
I also wrote my grandmother's obituary and the process of writing it over two days, talking to family, editing it alongside my mother, was incredibly hard, but I've reread it often and think how proud I am that I had the skills to do that for my family. I genuinely feel ill as well thinking about feeding the basic facts of her life into a LLM and asking it to do her obituary!! Wow, that example gave me chills.
LOVE THIS. So many angry thoughts and feelings on this topic.
One recent one: Yesterday, for work, I was asked to edit a short piece that a higher-up had written "with help from AI"- it was SO BAD. The AI of it all was ridiculous. Outrageously flowery adjectives. Totally inappropriate tone for our org or literally any piece of communication anywhere. It would have been so much better if they'd given me a few talking points and parameters to draft it, and less work for me than editing that mess.
And there's so much shame around it. Like people feel bad that they can't write well, or think critically, so they think "Oh, I found this tool, great!" But if you question the tool and outcomes on an individual and societal level, YOU'RE the bad guy and old-fashioned and snobby and over-educated. Because people feel so helpless with thinking and staying relevant. It's true that education is an issue in this country and world, but I wish AI weren't our solution.
I'm waiting for someone to say to me, "this is very rude to people who aren't good writers," but the point is that if you use ChatGPT to write, there is absolutely no chance you can ever BECOME a good writer. Like you can't get good at skateboarding by watching videos of skateboarding, eventually you have to get the board and go outside and fall on your ass!
And not having first drafts written by AI and then "punched up" by writers was a large part of the writer's strike!
Fantastic insights. I loved, "training myself to be a little more stupid, day by day."
I find ChatGPT is extremely useful as refinement engine. Instead of using it to think my thoughts for me, I use it to help me understand what I might be missing in thoughts I've already had. My attention to detail isn't that strong, so I can paste something I have already written, and ask ChatGPT to shoot holes in my idea, tell me what I might be missing, etc.
For example, I use ChatGPT for my day job in marketing, to take my eighty percent of the way there material, apply structured guidelines, and make targeted improvements. My team has a tone of voice guide, which I wrote. So I paste what I've written into ChatGPT, and then include the TOV along with this prompt:
"Using my tone of voice guide below, please review my content, and then write an annotated index with a list of the changes you recommend, and which of the pillars they failed to satisfy. Make that index a 3 column chart of “change, issue addressed, pillar satisfied.”
That has helped me edit faster and better and avoid being "off brand" and annoying my boss.
I was writing about some uses cases like this that I'm interested in but the piece was getting too long, so I pulled back. But I agree that it's interesting to use it in this way, to poke your argument for holes and as a way of getting feedback, almost. I've never tried it like that. I know people use it to write captions in very specific formats as well, which seems like a good way to claw back busywork time. T
You've said it all better than I can. I'm just expecting it will be part of the AI plus dumbing-down-of-humanity disaster that will end the world. I have some colleagues who are using it for book research (despite the fact that it responds with bullshit half the time?) and brainstorming and I....I....I can't deal with it. My diplomatic response is usually, "Well, it's good to understand how ChatGPT works so that you can be part of the cultural conversation about it" while my brain is screaming "Stop! Please stop!!!!"
But part of doing research yourself is organizing the information in your brain so you can build on top of it with your own insights....you are literally skipping the first part of the work?? I just don't understand how people think they can advance their skills by skipping steps.
Timely release with the the recent New York magazine article being published. Nice piece. I also do not want to experiement with generative AI whatsoever given the energy costs associated with its throw-away outputs.
“Honestly, thinking of all the college kids using ChatGPT to write papers makes me wish the world was flat so I could walk off the side of it.” Made me laugh so unexpectedly hard that I hurt my throat so UNTHANKYOU for that 💚
Well said, Caitlin! I write a newsletter about GenAI (for people who aren’t that jazzed about it) and one thing I keep trying to reiterate is to not use it for your “Zone of Genius”, aka the thing you’re really good at/your creative skill or talent (similar to your quadrant). I don’t use ChatGPT to write my newsletter but I do use it right before publishing to pull out all the SEO keywords for each post, which I then add to the metadata. You’re right: this saves me exactly 10 minutes 😅
Wow, I LOVE the concept of the "Zone of Genius," never heard that before! That's so interesting. And yes, I think that's a perfect use of ChatGPT, to do busy work that follows a strict format. I know people can use it for captions as well.
This was incredible and I feel so SEEN. I'm constantly so embarrassed and enraged by the people who say, "Oh, I use ChatGPT all the time!" Like they can't think of single thing wrong with it. Some things are supposed to be hard! Writing is hard! That's also why it's fun! Why are people skipping the fun parts?
Oh I loooooooove this! And I really love thinking about brainstorming and creativity-logic in terms of "collisions." Our inner thought-traffic is unique to each of us -- so of course it makes sense that the way our "collisions" happen and what those look like are equally unique to us! What a shame it would be to outsource (or lose) that hard-won specificity -- or to think of it as anything less spectacular than it really is.
I totally agree with every single word written here. The more I use chatgpt for anything I always feel like "I could've come up with that myself" if I was just a little more patient. Definitely need to stop relying on it.
I read that NY Mag piece this morning and it describes so much of what I feel like I’ve been trying to contend with while teaching this semester and you captured a lot of my thoughts well in this piece. Hard to not feel like we are just sliding toward the Idiocracy future.
I hate to sound old and grumpy but life is not meant to be frictionless! Anything worth getting good at is going to be very hard!
Yes, exactly!
Couldn't agree with you more, Caitlin, especially after seeing a recent study that found a negative correlation between frequent use of AI and critical thinking skills!
I also really wish people would stop using it for research and suggesting other people do as well because it makes shit up constantly. If I remember correctly, the latest model of ChatGPT hallucinates answers more than 30% of the time? It's insane to me that people continue to trust it as a source of information. Wikipedia is a far more reliable source than this thing now, which is wild.
To end my rant: I saw a post on Bluesky a couple months back from someone who said they had asked ChatGPT to write their grandmother's obituary for them. It was around the time that I had also lost my grandmother and my family had asked me to write the obituary, which I did. Seeing that post just made me sick to my stomach. I could never pass on something that meaningful and emblematic of humanity to a machine, and I don't know if I'll ever understand the impulse people seem to have to do exactly that.
I also wrote my grandmother's obituary and the process of writing it over two days, talking to family, editing it alongside my mother, was incredibly hard, but I've reread it often and think how proud I am that I had the skills to do that for my family. I genuinely feel ill as well thinking about feeding the basic facts of her life into a LLM and asking it to do her obituary!! Wow, that example gave me chills.
You have to do the annoying stuff because it's annoying and then you sit there annoyed and usually think of a funny thing about being annoyed!!!!!
this is the way!!!
Louder for the ChatGPT users in the back!!!!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
LOVE THIS. So many angry thoughts and feelings on this topic.
One recent one: Yesterday, for work, I was asked to edit a short piece that a higher-up had written "with help from AI"- it was SO BAD. The AI of it all was ridiculous. Outrageously flowery adjectives. Totally inappropriate tone for our org or literally any piece of communication anywhere. It would have been so much better if they'd given me a few talking points and parameters to draft it, and less work for me than editing that mess.
And there's so much shame around it. Like people feel bad that they can't write well, or think critically, so they think "Oh, I found this tool, great!" But if you question the tool and outcomes on an individual and societal level, YOU'RE the bad guy and old-fashioned and snobby and over-educated. Because people feel so helpless with thinking and staying relevant. It's true that education is an issue in this country and world, but I wish AI weren't our solution.
Rant over, for now lol.
I'm waiting for someone to say to me, "this is very rude to people who aren't good writers," but the point is that if you use ChatGPT to write, there is absolutely no chance you can ever BECOME a good writer. Like you can't get good at skateboarding by watching videos of skateboarding, eventually you have to get the board and go outside and fall on your ass!
And not having first drafts written by AI and then "punched up" by writers was a large part of the writer's strike!
Fantastic insights. I loved, "training myself to be a little more stupid, day by day."
I find ChatGPT is extremely useful as refinement engine. Instead of using it to think my thoughts for me, I use it to help me understand what I might be missing in thoughts I've already had. My attention to detail isn't that strong, so I can paste something I have already written, and ask ChatGPT to shoot holes in my idea, tell me what I might be missing, etc.
For example, I use ChatGPT for my day job in marketing, to take my eighty percent of the way there material, apply structured guidelines, and make targeted improvements. My team has a tone of voice guide, which I wrote. So I paste what I've written into ChatGPT, and then include the TOV along with this prompt:
"Using my tone of voice guide below, please review my content, and then write an annotated index with a list of the changes you recommend, and which of the pillars they failed to satisfy. Make that index a 3 column chart of “change, issue addressed, pillar satisfied.”
That has helped me edit faster and better and avoid being "off brand" and annoying my boss.
Hope she isn't reading this ;)
I was writing about some uses cases like this that I'm interested in but the piece was getting too long, so I pulled back. But I agree that it's interesting to use it in this way, to poke your argument for holes and as a way of getting feedback, almost. I've never tried it like that. I know people use it to write captions in very specific formats as well, which seems like a good way to claw back busywork time. T
You've said it all better than I can. I'm just expecting it will be part of the AI plus dumbing-down-of-humanity disaster that will end the world. I have some colleagues who are using it for book research (despite the fact that it responds with bullshit half the time?) and brainstorming and I....I....I can't deal with it. My diplomatic response is usually, "Well, it's good to understand how ChatGPT works so that you can be part of the cultural conversation about it" while my brain is screaming "Stop! Please stop!!!!"
But part of doing research yourself is organizing the information in your brain so you can build on top of it with your own insights....you are literally skipping the first part of the work?? I just don't understand how people think they can advance their skills by skipping steps.
Agreed!
Timely release with the the recent New York magazine article being published. Nice piece. I also do not want to experiement with generative AI whatsoever given the energy costs associated with its throw-away outputs.
Agreed. I feel very relieved to not have had access to this when I was younger, especially reading that NY Mag article.
“Honestly, thinking of all the college kids using ChatGPT to write papers makes me wish the world was flat so I could walk off the side of it.” Made me laugh so unexpectedly hard that I hurt my throat so UNTHANKYOU for that 💚
you're welcome!!!
Well said, Caitlin! I write a newsletter about GenAI (for people who aren’t that jazzed about it) and one thing I keep trying to reiterate is to not use it for your “Zone of Genius”, aka the thing you’re really good at/your creative skill or talent (similar to your quadrant). I don’t use ChatGPT to write my newsletter but I do use it right before publishing to pull out all the SEO keywords for each post, which I then add to the metadata. You’re right: this saves me exactly 10 minutes 😅
Wow, I LOVE the concept of the "Zone of Genius," never heard that before! That's so interesting. And yes, I think that's a perfect use of ChatGPT, to do busy work that follows a strict format. I know people can use it for captions as well.
This was incredible and I feel so SEEN. I'm constantly so embarrassed and enraged by the people who say, "Oh, I use ChatGPT all the time!" Like they can't think of single thing wrong with it. Some things are supposed to be hard! Writing is hard! That's also why it's fun! Why are people skipping the fun parts?
Are people walking around having never experienced flow state???
This is great! 100% with you.
Thanks, Carley! I just don't want the robots to write my little jokes for me :(
GAH I don't want to be consciously incompetent !!!
me neither!! I still am when it comes to grammar, though haha
This title is an amazing mantra for doing hard things! I've repeated it almost a dozen times since yesterday.
Oh I loooooooove this! And I really love thinking about brainstorming and creativity-logic in terms of "collisions." Our inner thought-traffic is unique to each of us -- so of course it makes sense that the way our "collisions" happen and what those look like are equally unique to us! What a shame it would be to outsource (or lose) that hard-won specificity -- or to think of it as anything less spectacular than it really is.
Thank you for writing this!
I totally agree with every single word written here. The more I use chatgpt for anything I always feel like "I could've come up with that myself" if I was just a little more patient. Definitely need to stop relying on it.