By Aliza Gans, Arts and Culture Editor
Today, it is practically impossible to avoid encountering artificial intelligence (AI) online, from a simple Google search to social media content. The rise of AI has brought on a wave of innovation, with companies, the medical field and private individuals alike all utilizing this tool to improve the lives of others.
Students at Yeshiva University have not been immune to AI’s hold on the world, but the way I see it being used is often not as positive. If you’re someone who has ever talked to me about AI, you know I don’t feel particularly partial to it. As someone involved in many creative spaces, I also have reservations about how the technology is being used in the greater entertainment and arts community.
I am not speaking about those who just plug their assignments into AI and call it a day. Though I firmly believe that is wrong and dishonest, I wish to highlight something else. Recently, I was paired with a classmate for a project, and I opened up the document to read over what she had written when I noticed a line at the bottom: “If your teacher wants it described more concisely…” I asked my partner if she used AI to write the assignment. She replied yes, but said she only used it to help outline the assignment. She assured me that the words written were her own, but something still didn’t feel right.
After some thinking and overhearing different conversations in the halls of YU, I came to a conclusion: people generally realize that plugging an assignment into AI is morally wrong, but many still believe it is completely innocent to use AI as a starting point. But in using such a shortcut, they were not thinking about what the assignment was asking of them, and certainly not coming to any original conclusions. Brainstorming, the initial stage of any project, research paper or essay, has been completely cut out.
I see the temptation of using ChatGPT to make my homework a little easier. There are certainly other activities I would find more enjoyable than doing schoolwork. But at the end of the day, the results of these shortcuts wouldn’t really be my work. How much would I really learn this way that I could apply to my future studies?
A recent MIT Media Lab study examined the impact of AI usage on the brain. The results found that those who were reliant on AI had the lowest brain engagement and that they “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” Whether we acknowledge it or not, our use of AI is changing the way our brains work and how they process information.
So is the era of brainstorming coming to an end? Will all aspects of learning be offloaded to a bot that has pulled facts from various corners of the internet? Will schoolwork build our skills or will it just be another area where corners are cut?
If we use AI to get our ideas flowing, are they really our ideas? By using AI in this way, we are spoon-feeding ourselves thoughts and doing our brains a disservice. We are not appropriately engaging our minds in ways that encourage cognitive growth.
As humans, we have been given the unique gift of creativity. Great works of art stem from the genuine human experience and resonate with audiences because of that. Creativity, and really all the work that we do, is supposed to come from us and our observations of the world, not what a robot is telling us others have already said.
Even among modern innovations, AI certainly seems like magic. But take Mr. Arthur Weasley’s advice in Harry Potter into consideration the next time you log onto ChatGPT: “Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain!”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Aliza Gans