Replacement, or Augmentation?
When having a conversation about any technologies in general, a question that tends to surface is: will said technology replace us, or augment us?
With AI being the focus of the moment, I shall thus look at the question in said lens. I think ChatGPT augments us, especially in many forms of writing (i.e. code, resume, essays, etc.) It is especially a good nudge when we are stuck with a programming problem, or when we are simply having a writer’s block.
Will AI replace us today? I don’t think so. There is more to writing than just content. Nuance, for one, varies across languages and cultures, and I doubt that a LLM is able to sense schadenfreude. For sure, not today, but maybe tomorrow?
Until then, I currently lean towards augmentation. While there have been breakthroughs in computing over the past decades, it feels like our interface with machines is still stuck in Douglas Engelbart’s Mother of All Demos — and that was 1968, over half a century ago!
Perhaps, it is our primal fear of replacement that is holding us back? I think that the comfort of augmentation lies in our ability to control both hardware and software. Sci-fi horror movies occasionally reminds us of how the lost or lack of these controls is utter chaos — The Terminator being one of them.
Maybe AI hallucinations aren’t such a bad thing after all?
