The Most Valuable and Yet Most Dangerous Tool

Contrary to other articles on this topic, this is not a clickbait nor a piece of text ridden by hyperbole. In fact, it's a very based assertion of the distillation of my experience with Generative AI and how it affects our lives. Naturally, this is not a comprehensive list of all the pros and cons of this technology, so feel free to add your ideas on the topic!

When it comes to value, there is no doubt that there are plenty of areas where Generative AI (or Gen AI, for short) makes things easier and more efficient for us. For example, writing short pieces of text is something it can handle well and deliver in an adequate quality. This text may not always be reality-based, as the AI hallucinates at times. However, for things like nutritional information, food recipes, scientific facts, etc., it performs reasonably well. Also, for fiction, although it may not always write text that aligns with the characters or the plot you have in mind. Then again, it has a creative license, so...

Gen AI is also good for practicing conversation. This may be particularly useful for language learning, where practice is as valuable if not more valuable to reading and doing exercises on a book/app. For more sophisticated conversations, it's also applicable, especially if you wish to view the arguments from different viewpoints, not muddled by emotions and prejudices that often taint a conversation.
Access to knowledge and information is another perk of Generative AI. This is also possible when offline, if the AI system lives on your computer (it may not be the most powerful model, but it’s often good enough, plus it’s an opportunity to practice patience as you have to wait for several minutes for its response). Naturally, this information may not be of the best quality, but it’s at least of the same level as the stuff you find on the web, so usable for most use cases.

Gen AI can also summarize stuff for you, or even rewrite it in a way that's more amicable, clearer, or better in some way. That's particularly useful if you want to reuse older content or give your ideas a different spin to suit your audience better.
Additionally, Generative AI excels at creating other pieces of content too, such as images, animation, sound, and even videos. The latter may not be that great yet, but they may be fine for specific use cases where you need just a short clip or something simple for educational purposes.

Finally, Gen AI can also be the basis of chatbots. This technology combines a knowledge base with an AI system to deliver more naturally-sounding bots that can tackle customer service tasks, particularly anything information-related. The big plus of modern chatbots is that they rely on facts rather than the knowledge stored within the AI model. This way, the risk of providing inaccurate information is limited, while in some cases, the chatbot may even admit ignorance (something a regular Gen AI system would never do).

Of course, all these merits of Generative AI are not unmatched by various perils that may not always be so obvious and easy to avoid. For instance, the regular reliance on this technology may cause the mind to atrophy and become reluctant to undertake more complex cognitive tasks. This may happen with the excessive use of technology in general, but with AI the problem becomes more prominent.

The easy access to information and answers that Gen AI provides may also dissuade people from conducting proper research on a subject. This can be anything of interest, not just scientific research (which faces its own challenges these days that have little to do with AI). As a result, someone may not be able (or even capable) to get to the bottom of a topic and passively accept the dominant view on it. Needless to say, such a stance may have adverse effects on that person's well-being, on various levels.

Generative AI may have a silver tongue and act as a great conversationalist. However, this may raise our expectations of what a conversation is like making us less competent in dealing with less refined conversation partners. Fortunately, we don't have to wait too long for people to respond, at least on a face-to-face chat, but sometimes we may be impatient with them anyway, partly because of the lower density of the information involved.

Get AI may be amazing in its multimedia creations, making it difficult for us to remember that through this process it's the creatives that get the shorter end of the stick. Not just because they don't get any credit for the AI-based rip-offs that we get from a computer, but also because we tend to value those people less and less. That's not to say that every creative professional out there is worth the money they ask for their services, but most are.

On topics like Generative AI, it's hard to have a clear-cut stance without risking being labeled as an absolutist. However, with proper discernment, it's possible to take a stance that makes sense without compromising much when it comes to the people around us. This is something that takes both mental clarity and discipline, not to mention courage. What's worse, a generative AI may be ill-equipped to advise us on this matter. Perhaps that's where the challenge lies and our opportunity for growth. After all, AI can be a valuable tool that can facilitate growth when used wisely. Without seeking ideas from a generative AI system, what are your thoughts on this matter?

PS - No Gen AI was used for the creation of this content (though I did use an AI tool for correcting some of the errors in it)