Outsourcing our writing to ChatGPT may diminish our critical thinking

Good morning.

We humans can get so emotional about AI—dazzled, afraid, frustrated, even disdainful that all those data centers and investment dollars have yet to shave hours off our workday. Overestimating the near term, underestimating the long term, Gartner’s latest “Hype Cycle for Artificial Intelligence” report already has us mired in disillusionment about cloud AI services.

And yet, as my colleague Jeremy Kahn writes so eloquently in his new book, Mastering AI, we’re clearly on the precipice of having our lives transformed by technology that can heighten or threaten the essence of who we are. As he told Fortune editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell at his book launch in New York last night, humans have long harnessed the power of animals and technologies that exceed our physical power. "We never really defined ourselves as a species based on brawn,” he said. AI, on the other hand, “challenges what makes us unique as a species, which is really our intelligence.”

Those of you who read Jeremy’s articles or his Eye on AI newsletter know that he’s attuned to both the potential and the perils of AI. After almost a decade of covering cutting-edge technologies, he’s a master at connecting the dots. What I found most thought-provoking about his book and his comments last night is the potential consequence of outsourcing too much to any technology. We’ve already seen what our current tools have done to our abilities to remember phone numbers or navigate city streets, never mind its impact on public trust and mental health.

Will AI enhance our expertise or ultimately diminish it?

Take, for example, the fact that ChatGPT can take our ideas and mold them into an argument. “Writing and thinking are not separable activities,” Jeremy argued. “I think when you lose your writing ability, you actually lose your thinking ability to some extent.” And if we outsource judgement, he added, “we will lose the ability to think critically.”

And yet, of course, the potential for AI to unleash creativity and innovation is immense. Maybe that’s why the book’s subtitle is “a survival guide to our superpowered future.” Here you can read an excerpt about how AI—with its hidden biases—may already be shaping how you think.

The greatest protection against losing ourselves to any algorithm is the human act of connection and conversation. Jeremy and my colleagues will no doubt debate these shifts with Fortune 500 leaders, founders, investors and other stakeholders next week at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Park City, Utah. Recognizing the scale and transformative impact of AI across all parts of society, we’re also bringing together leaders from business, government and academia later this month for Fortune Brainstorm AI in Singapore, and again in December for Fortune Brainstorm AI in San Francisco.

But history is what happens on the ground, in rooms where we don’t always get to go. I’m curious about your own experiences with AI. Is it over-hyped, under-appreciated—or both?

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Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com