ChatGPT: Te Machine Tat Tinks For You

to the authentic creative process.

Since the Industrial Revolution, Americans have bought into that fallacy, assuming the role of purposeless consumers. Te slogan of a recent advertising campaign by Coca-Cola sums it up best: “Because I Can.” Not because I need, nor because I think, but because I can.

Gabriel Levin Almost Fit to Print

We are living in a digital world, and there is no escape. Like the bionic limbs of science fiction, cellphones feel like extensions of the hands that hold them. Earbuds and headphones, virtual reality headsets and Google Glasses may as well be the cyborg exoskeleton.

We are no longer people but the disembodied eyes and ears of the Metaverse witnessing the speedy expansion of the Internet Age, which will one day render all humanity obsolete with automation. Tis is a worry of mine and a goal for the computer scientist who believes that technology can optimize all aspects of life.

Te latest so-called advancement in artificial intelligence could be particularly devastating — ChatGPT is a computer program that, in seconds, can produce a convincing essay. Te chatbot works unprecedentedly well: it has already written a speech given on the House floor by a congressman, completed a TV interview, and will soon replace laid-off Buzzfeed journalists in an attempt to cut costs.

I remember scoffing year after year at the notion that a computer could ever write a best-selling book, no less a passable essay. I always figured that the minimum qualification for a writer is that they themself must be capable of thought and feeling. But I was wrong because the market strictly prefers assembly-line mechanization

Te late comedian Bill Hicks, known for his irreverent broadsides against corporatism, warned that we are living in the United States of Advertising, not the United States of America. Cross-site tracking and targeted advertising on the Web have turned the digital ecosphere into a dystopian, for-profit surveillance state — in some countries, a vicious arm of autocracy.

In China, for example, censorship of the Tiananmen Square massacre is now automated, and those who write about the event online are referred to authorities by invisible yet all-seeing machine learning algorithms.

Te computer is now thinking for us–and limiting our understanding of the world and the history that has molded it. For that reason, I will never use ChatGPT to write my essays.

In academia, the essay is as popular as it is because writing one sharpens the critical thinking skills crucial to surviving in a society threatened by disinformation cashiers.

Recently, a chatbot company promised $1,000,000 to any appellate lawyer who would be willing to allow its artificial intelligence to argue a case before the

Brenner Beard Agree to Disagree

Brenner Beard is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached hbb57@cornell. edu. Agree to Disagree runs every other Tuesday this semester.

Picture your run-of-the-mill introductory course in any major at Cornell. It could be engineering, it could be business or it may be a different major but the scene looks the same. An old lecture hall, a sea of faces and hundreds of laptops open without a single ear tuned into what the professor has to say.

Many of you have experienced this almost like it’s a rite of passage of sorts for beleaguered underclassmen. In three years, I’ve been lucky to avoid this fate for the most part. Tis semester, however, the intro course death by powerpoint has found me at last. Its name: Economics 2300 and complacency. I warn my peers not to let artificial intelligence think for them lest they will not be able to think for themselves.

I dreamed of a world without so many machines and woke up into one where wars are fought online and with remote-controlled drones; where it is often impossible to get through to a person when calling an automated customer service line for assistance; and where grocery stores are starting to operate without

Class in Session

I must confess I spent the first two classes thoroughly unenthused, mimicking my disinterested peers head down in my computer. It was by no fault of the professor, either. You could have had an a-list celebrity teaching international trade but regardless, demand and supply curves will still be boring. In class three, though, something happened that gave me pause. It was simple, yet it was inspiring all the same.

Supreme Court in their place. Where do we draw the line?

To be clear, I am not a Luddite. After I graduate, I do not intend on moving off-the-grid and trading my various gadgets for a cabin in the woods. I embrace technological advancement, but only to an extent. Computers have their place, and so do people. Where technology infringes on human creativity rather than assisting it, I object to it, especially if it stifles learning.

Only in the 21st century would students pay a premium to go to college just to use ChatGPT to skirt deadlines instead of making good on their investment and actually learning.

My advice to Cornellians is to write your own essays because laziness simply cannot cut it. In a world without conviction, young people need to think for themselves and take accountability, especially in the classroom. We are not passive users, viewers and followers as the Silicon Valley technocrats label us.

We are free-spirited innovators with limitless creative potential, and no machine is more visionary than we are when we dare to dream. ChatGPT is, at best, the newest development in short-sighted consumerism and, at worst, a weapon to corrupt freethinking that we all must steer clear of.

economics is boring.

Despite the inertia against engagement in this economics class, one brave soul fought back. Tey raised their hand, asked a question and demanded to understand the material rather than going the easy route.

As for the rest of us, we all craned our necks and turned to gaze at this brave soul, on the hot seat in front of so many peers. Truth be told, even the professor seemed shocked. It wasn’t every day that he heard a voice other than his own in lecture.

I heard someone near me say something along the lines of “I wish they’d just be quiet.” My classmates were perturbed by this obvious interruption of protocol. I was inspired. Here was someone making the most of their education. Intro class be damned, they were going to have their questions answered. I think, in this example, there’s a lesson for all of us: We could all stand to make like my classmate and take a little bit of ownership over our education.

that we do. After all, there needs to be a degree at the end of that four year tunnel. Cornell doesn’t give a fifth year discount. At the same time though, the cost of a degree could also be measured in time

From about a row back and two seats to the left of me, a kid asked a question. A hand goes up and words come out. We’ve all been asking questions in this manner since grade school. You must remember, however, we’re not talking about your third grade math class. Tis is an hour and fifteen minute snoozefest replete with graphs, symbols and about 300+ people as equally uninterested as

Tere are over 4,000 classes offered to us students at Cornell. Tere are classes on wines, bee-keeping, political violence and every ancient civilization imaginable. Why on earth do we always seem to confine ourselves to classes that we wouldn’t even be interested enough to raise our hands and brave a question.

Sure, in the case of my relationship with ECON 2300, the answer to my question is easy. It’s a requirement of my minor. In many cases, that answer is enough for why we take the classes

— 120 credit hours in total. Most majors take up about 40-60 hours. Tat leaves many students with 60-80 credit hours of academic freedom in their schedule. Time and space that you could squeeze in a class on bee-keeping, or philosophy or whatever your interests are. 4,000 classes and the odds are at least one of them will make you want to ask a question.

So, from now on, I’ll face my classes akin to that nameless classmate — shameless, curious, and in tune with what they have to offer. I’m going to be proactive, search out classes I like and ask questions when I want to. We should all do that. Of course there will be classes you don’t like that you still have to take. Even then, though, do yourself the courtesy of putting your phone down — you’ll never know what you may find interesting if you pay attention.

Four years for an education is four years you wouldn’t want to waste buried in your laptop in the midst of a class you couldn’t care less about.

Sundoku Puzzle 1011001