Almost everyone you know has had a conversation with a robot.
In 2022, a technological advancement named ChatGPT brought artificial intelligence to the general public. The language model it uses can answer any question and write any piece of text given little to no information.
“ChatGPT grew in popularity quickly,” Adam Conner, vice president for Technology Policy at the Center for American Progress said. “It was one of the first AI technologies of its kind to be made available to the public in a way that the public could understand.”
There are new models of AI popping up everyday, a popular version among high-school and college students being the SnapChat bot, My AI.
But the ethical issues that surround artificial intelligence harms a particular demographic: students. Education Week said, “In the 2023-24 school year, 63 percent of teachers said students had gotten in trouble for being accused of using generative AI in their schoolwork, up from 48 percent last school year.”
When Chat GPT first circulated, I steered clear of it. There were too many negative opinions tied to anything it may have come up with, and I didn’t see the point in asking AI questions when Google worked just fine. Eventually, I learned it could generate material that wasn’t a piece of writing, like a meal plan with a balanced diet and shopping list, or a fitness routine. During a writing project last summer, I asked it to come up with synonyms for colors, unique names and their meanings and even analyze formulas within short stories.
There are several methods we as writers have used to come up with these things, from picking up a book of baby names to thumbing through a thesaurus. Chat GPT merely speeds up the same process, and instead of sifting through Google’s stock of information, AI acts as a tool that does its research using the internet as a source.
Instead of shying away from everything Chat GPT has to offer, here are some methods to adapting its findings to better assist your writing:
Talk conversationally. Talking to AI should be like having a discussion with someone you know that has extensive knowledge but doesn’t know the first thing about good writing. ChatGPT is notorious for wordiness, repetition, flat descriptions and adjectives.
Avoid directly copying and pasting its results. GPT’s dialect and wording is trackable, so much so that institutions can generate plagiarism reports using software such as Turnitun, an algorithm that scans for patterns in AI generated content.
Don’t believe everything it says. Again, AI searches the entire internet for its information, which we know can be misleading. And don’t be afraid to ask rebuttal questions, either.
Say thank you. Robots may use artificial intelligence to take over one day. Stay on their good side.
AI is a remarkable feat for today’s advancement of technology and will hopefully flourish one day to analyze our mistakes and teach us new things. Treat it as you would a powerful search engine that needs heavy editing. The authenticity of a writer’s voice cannot be generated online, and artificial intelligence should be used as a tool, not a personal assistant.