After being challenged to write about “AI in Academia”, I decided to write it completely on my own… Well, that lasted for like five minutes. At the sixth minute, I was curious to just take a peek on how the AI generated version would look like and there we go… it was nearly perfect!
I’m from the 2G Internet era. I have seen gradual innovations happening in various fields. I owned a Blackberry and now have an iPhone. I played the Ball Pong game on my phone and now spend hours playing GTA5 on my Playstation. I couldn’t comprehend using up 1 GB of data in a day after being used to making it last for as long as a month. Thus, I’m quite welcoming to the innovations and like to try them out myself.
Working on an essay or a paper is structuring all our thoughts to fit into a template or a format. In the past, we would brainstorm with friends for hours, check with our Instructors and our seniors to get their input for any fine-tuning needed. But now, chatbots like ChatGPT, Grok can produce such organized and fine versions of essays — All one needs is a well-phrased prompt. It can set the tone: formal, professional, or friendly. You name it you get it.
But between the convenience and the dependence on AI, I started to think if I am gaining knowledge out of it. Am I learning something or just sourcing some messy areas of a thinking machine? Am I becoming lazy and not doing the hard work anymore? I also tend to miss the muddle, the chaos, and the confusion we used to go through in order to get an interpretation next to perfection. AI gives us clarity, but a bit too soon. I yearn for the uncertainties, it makes me more curious. Working towards the solutions, and putting the pieces of the puzzle together, gives a sense of accomplishment as it is not always about the end goal but the journey matters too. In addition to this, AI researchers warn against using AI too much because it can induce psychosis or make mental health issues worse. Another drawback of AI generated text is that it will make up its own sources and has a ton of grammatical errors!
I also feel like I’m cheating the system. But this is more than that, this is an Evolution! An AI thinks with thousands of sources and billions of parameters with knowledge gained from all over the Internet. The answers are definitely smarter, relevant, and concise. Maybe the question is how we should use it. The invention of calculators didn’t kill Math, and development of Google didn’t kill curiosity. AI will not end learning unless we let it. But it must be used as an inspiration, as a research assistant, but not as a ghost writer. In the end, the choice still rests with us. Humans still hold the prompts!
No AI was used to write this article.
