ChatGPT Commentary

I sold my soul to chatGPT

It all started when I paid the fee

Now I can’t tell which words weren’t written by me,

My hands,

Born from authors, teachers, professors, in my home land

The dream to be a writer now hangs by a strand

Because the artificial intelligence has yet to be banned

The damned digital tool

It robbed our critical thought, we’re being left fools

Does it matter?; if this way we can still graduate school

Now you ask us to use our brains and we think it’s cruel,

How do we start writing again?

This spark for thought has to find amends

O, critical thinking, please come back, my friend.

I sold my soul to chatGPT but to what end?

No but seriously, I feel like this is a new phenomenon (confirmed by my classmates that it’s a common experience), a first-generation disaster brewing for the students to come. First and second semester, the AI tools were just barely coming out but weren’t a viable solution to our work needs. Third semester came around, OpenAI ‘opened’ up, and ChatGPT 3.0 invaded our minds like wildfire. What started as a study support morphed into a consciousness-robbing machine.

Originally, It was fine to ask the chat for an essay outline (and then the human does the writing). Not okay is putting that chat-generated outline back into the chat for a robot-created writing. It doesn’t matter how elaborate or genuine the prompt is, the product that comes out is AI-created (and it’s noticeable).

No, I don’t think my teachers are stupid or ignorant to this new digital revolution, I know they know it’s obvious when something is AI-generated. But after selling my soul to the machine, I lost my ability to write. I just sit staring at the document and instead of writing the essay like I should, I find my new brain’s pathways are to think of the clearest commands possible to send into the chat. I can still make the outline, propose the thesis, collect specific resources, and at the moment I used to love; when the time comes to compose the work… all I can see, hear, think, feel, is “ask the chat”.

I just want my brain back! This human (QRP) used to LOVE writing, I had dreams of being an author or at the very least a blogger. Those dreams are still real, but now there’s an obstacle we simply couldn’t have predicted.

And this! This is a blog post, written by me 100%— you can tell because it’s currently a shit-show of thoughts and stress.

Want to write! Need to write!

Can’t, ask the chat.

NO. I need to learn how to write again.

How do I do that?

(Ask the chat).

(NO!!!)

In less than a year the habits of our lives and thought process have been rewritten. How do we escape when the users aren’t aware of this problem?

To those who are aware… have you had any success yet?

Can you get your brain back after selling your soul?

“Selling the soul” sounds dramatic, but fits the role because it seems that after falling into this trap, morality doesn’t matter any more. It’s easy, it’s fast, it’s effective and efficient. But it’s robotic, not genuine, obvious, and at times inaccurate.

That’s where that earlier thought was leading!— Of course the professors know what’s going on. The problem is, as a student that’s lived with chronic depression more than half her life, AI is an absolute blessing. It’s made homework easier in those moments when existing is shitty and my will to live is busy taking a smoke break, but there are still responsibilities.

Thanks to ChatGPT, I’m still passing all my classes. Sadly, I have learned significantly less since relying on digital tools. It was without-a-doubt better when I actually read the books, no matter how difficult or how little I felt like I understood; now I can see that my struggle to understand was all that mattered. Without that struggle, no real learning happens.

There’s a clear place for these tools, for studying, or a small push on a stuck idea, for brainstorming and more!

But do not, under any circumstances, let it do the work for you. ChatGPT is a terrible, unregulated drug for the mind. Proceed with caution.

BLOG UPDATE!

Among other renovations, I’ve labeled all posts to indicate the level of AI involvement.

• Blog posts in the category ‘AI 70%+’ are for posts that are 70-100% written by the bot. These are usually for ideas outside of my current reach, and/or research investigations.
• ‘AI assisted’ indicates posts that had help from the chat, (less than 70% written by AI). This means it was my idea, but Chat helped organize and formalize it.
• ‘Written by Human’ is exactly what it sounds like; for posts written by the human mind alone. In these, if AI was used, it will be clearly cited and specified which parts <if not mentioned, no AI was used>).