Chat GPT

On November 30, 2022, Generative Pre-trained Transformer (Chat GPT) was unleashed on the human population. I knew nothing about it and until recently I called it Chat GPS, confusing it (as I am wont to do with most technology) with another application that is also making us humans dumber and dumber - ever more reliant on that robot in our pocket to get from point A to point B. GPS (Global Positioning System) is a technology that I happily employ and which has unhappily destroyed the part of my brain that figures out directions. I am quite sure that after several years of relying on GPS, I would not be able to navigate myself out of a paper bag. My entorhinal cortex and posterior parietal cortex (which together figure out spatial reasoning and use visual cues to help us find our way) have atrophied. I'm sure of it. And what has filled all that space which used to so readily and reliably get me to where I needed to be? I’m sure that space is now full-to-bursting with the absolute brain rot that I find on the internet. Cat videos, memes, political nonsense, wars and famine, and who wore what to the Oscars. I don't need to know any of that. But I do (or I should) want to figure out how to get around planet Earth without technology helping me. 

In the late 1980s when I lived in Italy I used to travel around Europe on buses and trains, airfare being unaffordable for me at that time. There were no cell phones or GPS systems then. I would look at paper maps or an atlas and figure out where to go next. From my tiny apartment in Italy I would phone up another friend living in Europe and (after having gone to the train station several days before to peruse the schedule from, say, Florence to Istanbul) I would call my friend and say “let’s meet at the Istanbul main train station at 2 p.m. a week from this Saturday.” This mode of travel was sometimes a very frustrating adventure. But a real life honest-to-God adventure nonetheless.

The train would be inevitably be delayed, and once I even arrived two full days after I was meant to when a blizzard socked us in for over 24 hours. While stuck on the train my friends and I chatted to the other passengers in a hilarious mixture of Italian, English and sign language. We tried to stay warm. We also read and slept and streched our legs while we simply sat on the train outside of Bucharest, Romania, sometimes staring out the window at the gloveless men shoveling the tracks. They were fighting an uphill battle the entire time, the snow falling faster than these poor men could remove it. Every few hours one of us would venture outside where an assortment of bundled creatures were selling food that they were roasting over open fires for the trapped and hungry train passengers. This was in the late 1980s and I bought an entire chicken, a small bag of roasted potatoes and some beers for my traveling companions and myself for three American dollars. I was amazed. We ate it all with our hands and washed it down with the ice-cold beer. It remains, to this day, a fond memory of one of the most satisfying meals I have ever enjoyed. Eventually I arrived. Cold, dirty, exhausted, but oddly exhilarated. What a trip it had been. My friend found us (having heard about the snowbound train) in the Istanbul terminal. He simply showed up each day at 2 p.m. knowing that eventually we would get there. When we arrived we wandered around the vast station, finally bumping into our friend at the information booth. We laughed and hugged, full of joy at having found each other. It was a simpler time. A time when travel did not rely exclusively on technology. It is a time that I miss.

This summer I was at a lovely beach bonfire with some friends. Their children, like mine, are all either in college or applying. “What did you write your essay about?” I asked them. “I didn't,” one of the boys laughed, “Chat GPT did.”

I was so stunned I was speechless. “But....why?” I finally whispered, gobsmacked.

“It's not a big deal,” this young man assured me, “everyone does it. Everyone. Do you know that admissions officers don't even read the college essays anymore? Because they are aware that a very large majority of them are written by robots - and that percentage goes up each year.”

“That can’t be true,” I protested. And then, throwing it out to the larger group of late teen to early twenty-somethings milling about I asked “did any of you guys use Chat GPT for your college essay?” One girl almost shouted “no! I would never…” but slowly the others began to raise their hands, smiling sheepishly. Of the ten people I surveyed, seven had used Chat GPT to write their college essays. I was appalled.

I pulled out my soapbox and commenced my rant, condensed here because who really wants to hear a rant…on the beach or anywhere else.

Using Chat GPT - especially in people whose brains are actually still developing (which is anyone under the age of 25) causes:

Reduced memory. Lower brain activity. A pronounced inability to retain any information. Hindered executive function development. Loss of personal “common-sense” reasoning. Reduced skill development across all areas. Loss of personal creativity and creative thinking.

Although I could clearly see that this group was rapidly losing interest in ol’ Miss Windbag and her “views” I couldn't stop myself. 

“Look up the recent MIT research,” I implored them. “You are all doing yourselves a grave disservice! Your young brains are not being used the way they should be. The way they were meant to be used! Eventually your brains will get so soft and dependent that you won’t be able to function on your own,” I warned them as they wandered away to get more drinks. 

There are even more detrimental effects to the brain caused by employing this “technological advancement.” Oddly I am having a hard time finding studies and research on the benefits of relying on Chat GPT to do your work for you. “The writing lacks soul...for now,” one critic wrote, “but that is changing. The computers become more human every day and very soon will develop their own “human voices.” That, I think, should scare the bejesus out of all of us. “It saves time,” says another. Saves time to do what? I want to scream. Doom scroll? Look at people you hate on social media? Get a quick endorphin hit by watching a young mother cat suckle her newborn kittens? Nap? Mind you, we are a mere three years into this new “amazing” technology’s life. I am afraid this trend will just gain steam until no one will write anything ever again. 

I was fuming. I went over to a friend who I have known for years. She is an exceedingly bright and successful woman. She is a dynamo and whatever she sets her mind to, however demanding…from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to running her own company, she does. And yet she’s humble. She never talks about herself; I always hear about her adventures from someone else. 

“Oh my God Suzie!" I launched into my tale of woe. “Those kids,” I said waving a dismissive and judgmental hand toward the youngsters still milling about the coolers and laughing “are ALL using chat GPT!”

“Oh,” she said, neither repulsed nor horrified. “I use it too. It’s a great tool. Like an administrative assistant but better. I use it all the time. Don’t you use it for your blog posts?” 

“What?” I exploded. “NO! Are you out of your mind? NO. I would never ever do that.”

Suzie just laughed. “Well that’s what we all say - until we start using it and it makes our lives so much easier.”

“But I don't want this to be easy. This writing is a challenge. Coming up with ideas. Writing an outline. Sorting out my jumbled thoughts and trying to straighten them out on paper. It takes hours to write a piece and hours more to edit it into something vaguely comprehensible. When I am writing I feel like I am taking my brain to the gym. Pumping brain iron. That's the pain and the joy of it. The challenge is the joy.”

“You're funny,” Suzie said, “and a luddite.”

“Yes I am!" I said proudly and then added “I miss the 80s.”

“Well if you're so opposed to technology why don't you write on a typewriter? Or better yet, instead of sending your posts out via the internet why don't you write them by hand, put them all in envelopes and send them to your readers that way?”

Damn. Suzie had a point. And she wasn’t done with me yet. “When you are writing does your laptop ever help you out with grammar? Or sentence structure?”

“NO! Of course not. Never. I have all that crap turned off on my computer. Other than spellcheck I don't rely on any of it.”

“But you do use spellcheck. And I'm sure that while you are writing you are fact checking on the internet? Or pulling facts from it to strengthen whatever point you are trying to make? So you do rely on technology somewhat?"

Damn Suzie. Always so logical. So smart. I was pretty miffed by now so I wandered away to stare at the ocean and fume. Alone. “What is this world coming to?” I asked myself while gazing at the crashing waves. And then I started to wonder. If I fed every post I have written (over 150 by now) into a computer and then gave that same computer some prompts to write an article about “The Force” from Star Wars (which is a piece I've been laboring over for months now) what would it come up with? Would it be better than what I’ve written so far? Would the piece have my voice? Would the writing have a soul? With all the information that that pesky little Chat GPT gremlin has stored in its head…probably. Am I going to succumb to the laziness of it all? Probably not.

My brain, like any other part of my body, needs a lot of exercise, at least a few times a week. Writing is that exercise, and I certainly hope I have a few more decades of writing in me. If I can stay disciplined. If I can continue to be strict with myself. If I can remain devoted to exercising my brain. But who knows? One thing I do know is that I won't be turning to Chat GPT to do my work any time soon. My brain needs the workout.

The future is most definitely here. I'm just not sure that the future and I are going to get along.