AI is something that I believe will undoubtedly have a profound impact on the world, and I think it will change our lives in ways that most people don’t even think about. The discussion about AI today reinforced this belief of mine, as hearing someone who is already extremely successful utilizing AI and continuously invests in AI endeavors talk about his optimism in the space was extremely interesting. Now, I know he may be biased toward the side of AI being a great innovative force as his own business and investments are tied to its success, but at the same time, I feel he was a highly educated, successful businessman who wouldn’t have so much faith in a losing investment.
As far as how I utilize AI currently, I love to use AI for quick learning of new concepts that I can easily ask questions about and review with the chatbot back and forth. This is super helpful when I would miss a class or even want to learn a skill outside of school and has always been very effective for me. Another strong use case for AI is for studying and reviewing material. Giving it files of information you need to practice, and having it create comprehensive practice tests, supported me so much throughout my first year of college and definitely helped me secure all A’s in my 2nd semester. These are my two current favorite uses for AI, but they’re both very easy and surface level, and I hope to begin testing more of what AI can do and using it to aid me in becoming even more productive in the future.
I’m optimistic about AI, but there definitely is concern about AI affecting people’s creative abilities, as I have already seen instances of this in myself. Sometimes when trying to come up with certain ideas, or anything that needs to be clever or creative, I find myself turning to AI to try and come up with something for me instead of relying on my own intuition. I beleive this is something that could continue to plague many people and potentially reduce creative work, but at the same time, AI is pretty awful at coming up with genuinely interesting and creative responses, as they lack human emotion and thoughtfulness behind them. Because of this, I’m not overly worried about AI taking over creative tasks, simply because humans can and I believe always will produce more creative and genuine work than an AI bot ever could.
-Austin Gilliland