Being Human in the Face of AI

There’s been a lot of buzz about artificial intelligence lately, specifically ChatGPT. I’ve been dipping into some articles and conversations with a sense of wonder and curiosity rather than alarm, concern, or resistance, though I admit I feel those things too.

The fresh accessibility of this technology will no doubt impact all our lives in ways we can only begin to imagine but can’t yet fully fathom. What’s clear: This is one genie that won’t go back in its bottle.

Writers already tend to be insecure, full of doubt about their talents and abilities, always striving to be more productive, and yet too often wind up in the “not good enough” camp of their own minds. My sense is this technology only aggravates these states.

I’m only in the early days of my investigations and taking a slow, typically human, pace. I see tools like ChatGPT as potential assistants for certain things. I often get Google fatigue as I look up information, trying to pick the right words and phrases for my search and then having to wade through a thicket of sponsored ads and questionably-motivated-algorithmically-chosen options. I no longer believe the results are unbiased (or biased only according to my specific search). At the moment, ChatGPT can source the internet for me according to much more specific criteria, and I can direct and correct it as I narrow in closer to what I’m looking for. I’m curious about these possibilities.

But rather than going down the rabbit hole of exploring everything it “could” do —right now it’s like a game of punching in questions and searches to see what it says, and I’m having some time-limited fun with that, but…— I’m taking some time to reflect on what I personally might need it to do to make my human life easier.

I might let it do some research for me when I need it. Or I could ask it for recipes featuring chicken, quinoa, and red peppers that are under 700 calories (totally random search). It can help me brainstorm article titles for blogs, and then I could pick one that inspires me, but beyond stuff like that, I intend to maintain my boundaries.

One thing I promise you: I’ll never use it to write anything.

We’re already inundated with content and information, and now we have new, powerful tools to generate more content faster. Personally, I’m oversaturated, and I won’t contribute to the onslaught. (But neither will I give up honing my own qualities of thought, being, and doing and sharing what I create when appropriate.)

I still feel hopeful, in some ways, about this time, because I recognize that being human is only going to become more valuable over time.

So, with the rise of AI, it’s time to explore, refine, and cultivate what it means to be human. Yes, AI will be “learning” from us all the time, but no matter what AI will be able to do for us (or for itself..) it will never be human.

As we learn to navigate bigger and thicker forests of human and AI generated material, we’ll be looking for that human touch. Human to human contact will become more valuable.

Human experiences will matter more, especially if we can talk about them, teach by them.

AI might enhance human ingenuity and creativity, but it will never be a true source of it. AI will aggregate human knowledge at record speeds, and it may reinterpret that knowledge to create new things, but soon enough it will risk becoming too self-referential and get tangled in its own knots.

After all, this genie (or will it turn out to be a monster?) was “born” from human creativity. Our collective ingenuity over time got us to this place. But I’m not dismissing the possibility (probability?) that the monster might turn around and strangle its creator one day. It’s perfectly human to have such fears.

As AI spreads through the common marketplace, most everyone will be asking: Where are we going with this? And that’s perfectly human too. But it’s even more human to ask: Where did we come from? How did we get here? And why are we here at all? These spiritual or existential questions lead us to the deepest sources of human imagination and creation. It's our curiosity and wonder about ourselves and the world that ultimately keep creativity alive and flourishing.

AI may be able to outpace us in output, but original, human inputs are the source of all these new possibilities. As we continue to explore what it means to be human, and apply human intelligence alongside artificial intelligence, let’s also commit to creating as humans, not robots. In this way we’ll stay in touch with the ultimate wellspring of creativity.

Write as a human.