Tulyata

I love writing essays and blog posts. Especially when I have something to say. It’s par for the course to write while at school, but post that phase, it’s a real pleasure to put thoughts to paper. I love everything about that process, from gathering my thoughts, thinking up outlines and fleshing out the articles. How good I am is secondary, the opportunity to engage fully and sort out my thoughts is invaluable.

By themselves, the above statements are unremarkable. In the times of AI, however, they might be the key to how we handle this, and other critical junctures that will pop up along the way as civilisation grows and our capabilities as a species advances.

Generative AI works to predict the next token or word to put together sentences and subsequently write material that makes sense based on the prompt that flagged off the process. This means that writing an article or post on a particular topic is as easy as asking AI like ChatGPT to write up something based on the requirements I have. I could ask for a couple of paragraphs on Gen AI or essays on AI in general and the AI tool will put something cogent together in a matter of seconds

If I simply needed something, anything, to go out based on my requirements, it might take a few tries while prompting the AI but I would get it done in a short span of time. What’s missing from this whole process is the personal growth I would have had, had I written everything myself.

To my mind, therefore, it all comes back to the purpose with which we are performing the activity, writing included. Every question a student faces throughout their education has already been answered, and yet we require them to go through the process of answering the question to help their abilities grow. Education reform notwithstanding, we all recognise that there is something of value in showing up to school everyday, spending time with our friends and peers, and learning something new.

At it’s core, learning is one of the purest pleasures known to man. When we do something based on a skill we spent time acquiring, the joy we feel is palpable. It’s a great way to fire off newly acquired neural patterns and even rewire our brains as we grow our abilities. Another example would be, we have machines that lift any amounts of weight and move at any given speed in the world today, and yet physical exercise is recommended to the average person by every physician in the world. There will be exceptions, but both physical and mental exertion is required of most people.

Today, we have AI that is showing promise of being able to reason, and therefore get more done. Let’s take a moment to celebrate how far we have come technologically. But beyond that, we need to find a way to incorporate the technology into our lives, rather than twisting our lives around to what technology can do. We can develop technology as much as possible, and appreciate breakthroughs while determining what every human being needs in order to live well, age well and do well in life.

AI is of our making. So are the policies that need to govern the same AI. As technology improves, a complementary growth in social sciences, the humanities and law is necessary to safeguard the lives of everyone on the planet. We are now in an era of global problems such climate change and the running out of non-renewable resources, and that simply means that our solutions need to be global too.

I think this is a great opportunity for us to strengthen global platforms like the UN. This will mean an overhaul of existing attitudes where the First World is given precedence. Global platforms can succeed only when every human being is treated equally. Not everyone will need the same treatment or will have the same concerns or problems, but all human beings need to be seen, heard and taken care of and all life should have equal value.

As a species, we are yet to find our place in the world. We don’t fit in well, we are not sure what next steps are and the next generation is bearing the burden of all we need to do to survive. These are not ideal conditions for anyone. We need to step up and we need to step up now.