ChatGPT: a conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel good.
I am going to come clean. I am an enthusiastic user of artificial intelligence (AI) or at least large language models (LLMs) mainly as a subscriber to ChatGPT. And I get the impression that many other people are too.
How did I ever manage without this magical tool? Bids for funding are so much easier. I can convert interview transcripts into articles in a second. Articles written in academese can become accessible and engaging, short, magazine-style articles with a click of my mouse. Of course, I check them out with the original authors who generally are amazed at the results and happy to edit them for accuracy and completeness.
A young woman suggested I was complicit in the destruction of youth intelligence as students apparently now just submit AI slop as their own.
I do have a nagging guilt though, particularly over the environmental impact but also the feeling of being involved in a sort of cheating. When I admit to my LLM usage, some academics have clearly indicated in their tone that I have gone over to the dark side. A young woman suggested I was complicit in the destruction of youth intelligence as students apparently now just submit AI slop as their own. The young have stopped bothering to learn, she claimed and I was partly responsible.
Do I protest too much?
My defence? Well, I am using LLMs “for good” not to solve minor personal problems or shopping needs to which apparently 70% of usage is dedicated. At the end of the day, I am the one that asks the questions – isn’t asking the right questions what intelligence is about? I can have so much more impact with ChatGPT at my side. And I never claimed to be a writer in the first place. Do I protest too much?
The World Wide Web was also exciting initially. I remember doing research for a masters thesis in the early 90s and being amazed at what I could find easily searching on Netscape before Google search was even a thing. Having followed Cory Doctorow’s analysis of the enshitification of the World Wide Web, I must accept that these may be the halcyon days of LLMs. The future may involve a choice between escalating costs and techbro propaganda. The pressure to make money following such huge investments does not suggest things are going to end well.
So with discussion of artificial intelligence at the top of many people’s minds, at least before Trump was persuaded to invade Iran by Israel, and with much of the narrative coming from people with huge economic interests in its success, this issue is dedicated to seeking more independent views of what its development might mean for humanity.
Patricia Gestoso looks at the motivations of the emperors of AI, Erald Kolasi considers its environmental footprint, while Julian Darley explores its positive potential if used for good.
Roger Miles looks at how scams work in the world of AI, Alan Freeman suggests China may be taking a more enlightened approach and Guy Standing looks at how we might rise up against our tech overlords.
Patrick Leavy argues for an exodus from big tech platforms while our regular columnist, Verity Bastion, falls is love with a robot.
Moving beyond AI, Lachlan Kenneally questions the rush to market venison and Ai-Peri Dzhumashalieva suggests companies claiming credibility from nature based solutions have questions to answer.
We also take longer views with Richard Vague drawing parallels between the state of disunity amongst the US colonies and Tump’s USA, Rick Rowden looks at the continuing case for rewriting international economic rules skewed against the Global South as recently admitted by Mark Carney in his Davos rupture speach.
Cliff Mills and Simon Grove-White suggests we need to talk about procurement, Lauren Leek suggests that the demise of pubs is about much more than beer and I outline a report suggesting economics students are not the independent thinkers they claim to be.
