Last week one of my professors asked us in class how we incorporate ChatGPT into our learning. During a time, when a lot of teachers (who are aware of it) are concerned regarding students copying off of ChatGPT, my professor's open question sparked an honest and interesting discussion.

In a class full of mobile application developers and UI/UX designers, students listed some unique ways in which ChatGPT saves their time and helps them with their studies. Their responses ranged from the typical use of ChatGPT as a google search replacement to consulting ChatGPT during the various stages of the development process. Someone also mentioned that ChatGPT helped them find resources (websites) that even multiple google searches couldn't find.

But once this discussion faded, another began when our professor asked if we thought that ChatGPT will steal our jobs. Almost everyone agreed that our jobs will evolve but as of now the way AI agents work, our jobs are quite safe. Examples were quoted on how code coming out of ChatGPT was often outdated or even wrong and how ChatGPT is built to be more convincing than accurate. Further, nothing that ChatGPT churns out can be taken at face value, it will always need to be supplemented with a pair of human eyes carefully scanning the content(code or otherwise) for mistakes.

Another day, one of my professors, admitted to saving a lot of money by asking ChatGPT to write blog posts for him. ChatGPT is quite useful in writing letters, proofreading content, generating new ideas and helping in brainstorming in general. I personally always use it to confirm my approach while I'm chalking out strategies to handle the code design of an application.

AI agents like ChatGPT are a boon for curious people. My fiancée uses ChatGPT to hone her Latin and ancient Greek. She doesn't need to go through any website to find content or answers. This is probably the case for thousands of people.

Developers can ask AI to find errors in their code, and ask specific questions concerning their code. People don't need to rely on online forums and wait for others to provide solutions when you have a trained AI replying within seconds.

"cyberpunk robot holding weapons in a post-apocalyptic city"- art generated using DALL-E AI.

Artists can work with art-generating AIs to get inspired, generate unique prompt-based art and let their creativity improve. People can focus on more important matters and delegate the less important ones to AI.

Isn't this simply amazing? AI is here and there are no repurcussions? It's all positive and happily ever after.

If only! Life isn't a Disney movie, is it?

Let's talk about the other side of the introduction of AI into our lives. Like I said above, artists can use ar-generating AIs to generate content, but so can other people. Why would I pay for an expensive painting when I can have a personalized version of my choice in the style of my favorite painter, generated by an AI? I agree it is not for everyone but what these AI models provide is more than enough for the majority. Freelancing jobs will see a significant reduction when it comes to blog writing, selling paintings, creating digital art, etc.

Also, if all my code is coming out of ChatGPT, what am I learning?

Will saying "I am an amazing prompt writer!" get me a job with a tech company as a developer? AI agents can help you get started but they shouldn't be used to do your work for you, you stop learning this way. Automating tasks is quite comfortable but technology does break once in a while and you need to still know the manual overrides when it does. People turn lazy very quickly using technology as an excuse.

Also, as I mentioned above, code coming out of ChatGPT can't be taken at its face value, so people still need to check it carefully. Code can be wrong but code can be outdated as well, to check the former is easy, but to check the latter needs expertise and experience. So at all times, you are going back and forth with your AI, spending more time than it would have taken if you had just written the damn lines yourself.

Another thing to think about is what if companies integrate ChatGPT into their workforce resources. Now, this may seem great from afar, but this may lead to an unrealistic increase in expectations from your boss.

"Now that we have invested millions in acquiring ChatGPT enterprise edition, we should be able to deliver projects 50% faster" - A future visionary CEO.

It wouldn't surprise me if more and more people start finding their jobs less interesting and fulfilling as well. All the rush that you get in fixing stuff and completing a project will go away when an AI is going to be doing the fixing for you. You might find your passion fading if you rely too much on AI for the tiniest task.

And finally, I believe AI agents hamper a very crucial aspect of our life, our social life. We are already losing that social touch, and owing to the pandemic which pushed us to shift our workspaces into a virtual sphere, AI is going to make it even worse. Discussion forums and knowledge-sharing websites are already seeing a decline in views. I have noticed that I'm going to ChatGPT instead of Google more and more often.

ChatGPT has become a usurper, overthrowing even Stack Overflow's long and unchallenged regime in the coding world. Is that good or bad, I'll let you decide for yourself. But I'll say this, AI agents are here, open for everyone to use and soon we'll have contenders from Google (Bard), and possibly other tech companies.

It's an undeniable fact that AI is here to stay and is a very powerful tool, useful or not, who am I to say? Maybe this isn't even me who wrote this post, maybe I am ChatGPT and I know it! (evil sentient AI laugh).