parallelsversusdictators.org

Recently, I spent a total of about 10 hours conversing with an AI chat-box on issues with parallelsversusdictators.org Together, we solved significant problems and greatly improved the site (I hope). I gave the chat-bot high marks, but known drawbacks have raised public concerns about AI.

Example: AI can tempt users (especially students) to plagiarize on school work. As a high school English teacher fifty years ago (long before AI), I detected that roughly a third of students in one of my English classes had plagiarized from various sources when completing a writing assignment. I easily detected that the submitted papers done as homework were different in style and quality from each student’s authentic output done in the classroom. Instead of a grade, I wrote the following on those essays: “You and I both know the truth about this paper.” None of the students denied my accusation, but one person complained about her new assignment, which was to write an honest paper and submit it a week later, after the spring recess ended. She thought this was an unfair intrusion on her holiday plans.

Even worse, AI easily becomes a substitute for original thought. Each time I start to compose an email, a message appears on screen inviting me to use an AI-generated text based on the subject of my draft email. The robot will happily write a substitute for my message text. If I preview the offered text, the result isn’t bad, it’s just not my words and not exactly my thoughts; using AI’s proposed content is not only unethical, it is self-destructive, encouraging me to cripple my own reasoning and communication skills through disuse.

And that’s not the worst of it: AI is resulting in the construction of huge new data centers to store additional digital information, including text, videos, gaming and all the things we like to view and discuss online. The electrical energy consumed by these data centers affects natural resources, especially water for cooling the giant processors inside the buildings.

I’ll save my suggestions for conscientiously and constructively using AI for a future blog.