From The Newspaper (72) 　Generative AI (13)

March 21, 2024

Number 13: Will Chat GPT make us lazy?

He was a kind of lazy person.

He would clean his house as few times as was acceptable. He would take his garbage to the collection box as few times as acceptable. He would cook the same type of food and eat as long as he wouldn't feel sick of it. He wouldn't return emails unless they were important emails. He wouldn't send emails so often, but tended to use his phone because it could resolve the problem quickly and took less time.

He knew that Chat GPT was used at work, summarizing meetings' conversations, writing emails, etc.

If someone wants to make Chat GPT summarize a meeting's contents, he/she will record the meeting and is happy without taking memos. But there is a risk that recording won't be successful, it can happen because of machine trouble or battery shortage. In that case, he/she can't recall the meeting without memos, so people will take memos. After he/she summarizes the meeting by Chat GPT, he/she needs to check whether it didn't miss some important part, so he/she needs to take memos, anyways. If some part of the

document by Chat GPT wasn't good, they would rewrite them. Then, they need to transfer the document to a regular reporting form, maybe WORD. So, just starting to write on WORD with a memo is easier.

Writing an apology email by Chat GPT.
The person who ordered Chat GPT to make apology letters was probably sensitive about Chat GPT making mistakes, like different surnames or misunderstanding about fault. So, he/she checked it many times and realized that it would be easier to write an apology letter by themselves.

The reason why he stopped using Kindle.
At that time, he felt it was troublesome to start using Kindle. For example, he suddenly wanted to read "book X". He turned on the Kindle, it took time, although it was not a long time. He took another few minutes to look for "book X". And ... he needed to find where he should start, he forgot where he read up to last time. The machine might show the page that he read up to last time, but he couldn't remember if it was really the last place. If it was a real book, he would go to the book shelf and find the book. Maybe he found the bookmark. He would read some parts before the page, and remember the story. It would take some seconds. That's it. In some cases, the Kindle didn't standby easily. It took 10 minutes or so because the battery was dead completely.

He would sometimes write short stories, but he didn't have any ideas to write short stories using Chat GPT. Because if he ordered Chat GPT to write something by giving prompts. Something like, "You are a good writer and please write 3 interesting short stories within XXX words. The stories should have some science fiction taste." If he wasn't lucky, the three stories would not be good. But, he just pushed the starting key again and another three stories would appear after a few minutes. He could repeat this until a good story appears. But, each time he has to read one by one. He couldn't omit this part. The story might be good, but it might have some parts to check to correct or not. So, for him, it seemed easier to start to write from scratch. He had been gathering topics that he was curious about and clues for his stories. If he started to depend on Chat GPT, he might finish his custom.

Recently, he read an article from a newspaper, the title was 'Half of students have used generative AI'.

It read that the respondents were from 9, 873 undergraduate students at 31 national, public and private universities in Japan. There was a graph which showed their tendency:

The number of students to use on generative AI on a regular basis was 28.9%; those who used generative AI in the past, but not using it now was 17.8%; those who had never used generative AI, but would like to try it was 28.2%; and, those who never used and won't use it in future was 24.4%.

22.1% of students used Chat GPT as references for writing papers and reports. 12.1% of students used Chat GPT for translation or essays in foreign languages. 11% of students used Chat GPT for consultations and chats, it read.

The article introduced two different opinions from two students. Student one: "It feels the same as searching on the internet. I don't feel guilty about it. Once you get used to the convenience, there is no going back." Student two: "This casual use may foster disregard for originality and copyrights. It's dangerous to just have this type of technology evolving while laws and morals fail to keep pace." After reading these two quotes, he could firmly predict which student's future would be bright.

(To be continued)