ChatGPT Can’t Teach Your Grandma to Suck Eggs
Don’t let it run over you
You probably are fed up by now about ChatGPT articles. I know I am. Is it ethical? Is it quality? Is it threatening? Will it leave writers unemployed?
I think we should reconsider our perspective.
It’s not the first time it’s happened
All scientific advances through history made someone tremble. While housewives were over the moon with their time savings thanks to the first kitchen hardware, professional cooks were suspicious of them.
They didn’t deny the utility of the tool, but it was scary. The fear of the unknown can paralyze us.
The same happened with any other machine created to ease our lives.
There was a time when having a coffee meant having to walk to get some fresh water, putting some wood in the kitchen stove and light it (or having the fire working 24/7), heating the kettle or pot and grinding coffee beans, and getting some fresh milk from the milkman or next cow.
Now we use tap water, capsules, and press a button.
I still remember how pampered we were when we went to a gas station. The driver didn’t need to leave the car, only hand the key through the window. While we waited inside, someone was washing the windscreen. In some places, you could even order food, and they would bring a tray.
Now we are lucky if there are some tissues to wipe the petrol running down our fingers if we don’t pay attention when we refuel the car.
That’s progress.
Apparently.
We got too used to machines replacing humans
Slowly but surely, machines are replacing us. We can go on with our day without interacting with a single human if we want to, which must be a paradise for introverts but a disaster for our evolution as a social species.
We need each other to survive. We grow in community. We are social animals.
Last summer, I caught a flight from Helsinki. I couldn’t believe my experience.
The airport was very silent, not the kind of Northern-European-busy-but-quiet place, but empty in the middle of July.
When I went to check in my 20kg (44 pounds) suitcase, there was nobody from the airline there. Only a solitary machine.
I scanned my QR flight ticket, and the machine printed the luggage tag. I put it on the handle as I saw them do hundreds of times before, and I went to the baggage belt. Of course, nobody helped me lift my suitcase.
I exceeded the limit by 2 pounds, but nobody gave me the option to pay extra; a big red X indicated the suitcase wouldn’t move until it had the right weight. So I had to adjust the weight. Not only that, the luggage label had to point at a specific scanner.
All in all, I had to move my heavy luggage up and down like five times until the belt swallowed it.
I couldn’t stop thinking, what if it was my grandma instead of me?
Machines are efficient but unoriginal
As people get fired every day because a new machine took over their job, it’s easy for creators to fear that fatal destiny.
And I can’t help but remember how scared cooks were when the first kitchen robots were invented. My husband is a chef, and he keeps competing with the Thermomix.
Which is like an artisan carpenter comparing their work with Ikea furniture.
When the first Ikea store opened in Spain, there was a lot of noise. My just-married friends went to Madrid in hordes to furnish their first home. It was definitely cheaper than traditional furniture.
The first house I visited was beautiful.
And the second, and the third, and the hold on a minute, where did I see this before? fourth. By the eighth, I knew exactly how the house would look beforehand. I kept having this Deja Vu syndrome everywhere I went.
As weird as it sounds, Spain became Nordic.
And very unoriginal.
It wasn’t any different with the kitchen robots. All of a sudden, people who invited you over to order some pizza were making creme brulees and Thai curries, even though they had never been to Thailand or a Thai restaurant.
All their food was tasty and unoriginal, but at least everybody felt proud of their creature.
Ikea and Thermomix were great inventions for busy people who lacked the creativity, the time, or the will to experiment with decoration or food. But that’s all. I challenge you to visit a home with homemade furniture or try my grandma’s lasagna, and you tell me the difference.
Machines lack the creativity and emotional part
I know many people brag because they can detect AI content.
I can’t.
But that’s not because AI is that good, but because there’s too much unoriginal content online. It has been there forever.
At least AI will almost guarantee that others won’t steal our content so blatantly. Why would they? Now they have something writing content for them, even better, for free.
As far as my limited knowledge on this topic gives me, AI can’t use personal stories because a machine has no personal experiences. And what distinguishes your grandma’s Sunday roast from anybody elses’ is that personal touch, the love, the way she cuts the potatoes that not even the best restaurants can replicate.
It doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy Sunday roasts anymore, but there will be something missing. Sometimes you won’t be able to explain it with words, but somehow you’ll feel full and yet empty.
Exactly what I feel when I read AI content or average posts. I don’t read on Medium a single how-to that doesn’t come with a personal story from the author. If I need someone throwing information at me, I’d rather go to an encyclopedia.
Don’t you feel the same?
Everybody has the right to express themselves, but many lack the tools
When Instagram started, many professional photographers were fuming. Same with artists with Pinterest, Paint, Canva, Etsy, or any other platform for artistic expression.
They didn’t get the point.
Ordinary people usually hire a photographer only on special occasions, and for that, we still hire them. Same with art. Many people are happy buying a watercolor print from a gift shop to hang in their living room, while others invest in unique art to increase their patrimony.
Canva gave us the illusion of being artists without studying for a Master’s degree in Corel Draw, Photoshop, or Adobe Illustrator and spending a fortune on licenses.
Instagram gave us the illusion of being photographers and showing our creations to the world, even though future generations will believe that we didn’t have color in the past decade since all the pictures were in sepia.
Youtube and TikTok make us believe we are film creators, actors, and directors. We can achieve fame without going through years of school and bartending in Los Angeles. How cool is that?
Writing is the ultimate creation tool normal people needed
I never understood why 80% of people want to write a book while the world is reading less and less. Wouldn’t it make more sense that they made a movie since they prefer watching TV to opening a book?
Well, no. Because they want to leave an everlasting legacy.
Something as human as our need for connection. Even in the first archeological sites, we could find proof of the need to communicate with present and future generations.
But as with other forms of art, not everybody has the time, creativity, will to learn, perseverance, or talent to be a writer or a content creator.
Chat GPT covers the human need to express ourselves through writing.
We’d better get ready to eat the same creme brulee, sit on the same sofa to see thousands of pictures in sepia, and read the same book a thousand times, because unoriginal content came here to stay.
Our role as writers will be to use AI as an assistant and add the personal touch only our grandma could give.
Did you know there’s a place where entrepreneurs and professionals learn how to get paid for being themselves? Wanna be another proud weirdo? Join the fun here :)
