Published on May 12, 2023

I’m terrified of artificial intelligence, anxious it will render my writing abilities ineffectual and useless. What am I to do then? Sit back and watch it consume the rest of the world? While my classmates and teachers are exploring the possibilities of AI with ChatGPT, I am jumping to doomsday conclusions, too afraid to start a conversation with the chatbot. It feels forbidden, unethical, and frankly, too easy. In an article from The Atlantic that discussed AI potentially replacing English classes in school, the author, who had 12 years of English teaching experience, was surprised to see ChatGPT’s writing surpass “the large majority of writing seen by your average teacher or professor” (Herman). Who would prefer an eager and educated journalist to an omnipotent robot that can spit out eloquent articles at 10x the speed without burning out? A feat that is humanly impossible!

That’s the point.

ChatGPT’s capabilities are no longer a secret. It’s highly valued and manipulated by students, teachers, professionals, and even government officials. For example, high school teachers are now becoming dependent on AI to draft recommendation letters for their students. The consequences? Generic letters that cannot provide students with the competitive boost they may need to succeed. But AI’s potential? Unmatched.

According to ChatGPT itself, ChatGPT is a “computer program designed to understand and generate human-like responses” to input. Anybody can use it to answer questions, carry on conversations, and generate text. ChatGPT promises to be one of the most powerful language models currently available. It can learn from extensive amounts of text input and produce responses that are often “indistinguishable from those of a human” (ChatGPT). How can you compete with that?

You can’t. Instead, the question to ask is, “Is it still worth pursuing traditional learning?”

As Daniel Herman said in his article published in The Atlantic, “It was like magic” (Herman). Ever since its launch, my future as a writer has looked bleak. What value would my English degree hold? Even one from the most prestigious university? Was there any point in working as hard as possible to get accepted to the college of my dreams? I did not know then, but I do now. The answer is simple.

Yes.

Education systems are currently tackling what they believe is an existential confrontation between two AIs: artificial intelligence and academic integrity. But as EdTech VC, Tony Wan argues, “It doesn’t need to be so combative and oppositional. More likely, they’ll evolve together as kids, teachers and technologists uncover new ways to teach, learn, think and build with AI” (Sanako).

The key is balance. ChatGPT is limited to surface-level operations, so rather than letting it think and act for us, we should use it to enhance what we already can do, to make our work more impactful. This technology is not a replacement for humans, at least not yet. It can nudge us in one direction or another. But it is still humanity—with its intuition, evolutionary mindset, and emotional intelligence—that drives the world as we know it today.

As humans, we need to know that our work matters, makes a difference, to someone somewhere. That’s something artificial intelligence may never be able to provide. 

By Eedha Kaul | Oberoi International School