When I started high school, still in the haze of the COVID-19 pandemic, artificial intelligence was still mostly a thing of sci-fi books and movies. As the years passed and I neared graduation, this new site called ChatGPT was being tossed around, helping my classmates breeze through their homework. I shrugged it off and carried on doing my work as I was. Now, as a sophomore in college, it is impossible to ignore.
“Just ask Chat” has become the next “Just Google it.” Yet, while Googling a topic would offer up multiple sources to sift through to determine what information is credible, its new AI assistant conglomerates sources into a blurb of text that has a bad track record for accuracy. While it’s tempting to excuse those errors as hiccups in the development of a fast-evolving technology, it’s important to note that OpenAI (ChatGPT’s parent company) systems still struggle with hallucinations.
Some factual errors may seem a reasonable price to pay for the convenience of ChatGPT’s answers. But there is a larger cost to overreliance on the tool, as outlined in a recent MIT study. The study found that students who used ChatGPT to write an essay demonstrated significantly less cognitive engagement in neural pathways than students who wrote with search engines or with no assistance. So, while I can acknowledge that ChatGPT is a powerful tool, I caution against letting it become a crutch. As college students, most of us are paying thousands of dollars each semester to take classes. At a certain point, we have to ask ourselves why we’re here, and take our learning into our own hands.
I don’t mean to invalidate the efforts of students who use ChatGPT. The problem is, its credibility and effects on learning in the context of school use are just the tip of the iceberg. AI feels like it operates from the cloud, but its brain has to be somewhere. That somewhere is data centers, where computer infrastructure is stored and runs constantly, generating a lot of heat and thus needing a lot of water to cool it down. AI’s projected water usage could hit 6.6 billion cubic meters in 2027. Its carbon footprint is also significant. Creating GPT-3 generated the same carbon dioxide equivalent as driving 123 cars for a year. This number will only increase as consumers use it.
We’re already in a tense time for the planet with increasing demands across the globe for water and energy, while racing against our carbon emissions to keep Earth’s climate from warming at a dangerously high rate. We do not need to add fuel to the fire just to accomplish tasks humans are already capable of.
As Gen Z, we have built up a reputation of being the generation to push for social change, especially when it comes to the harsh realities — present and future — of climate change. We should not turn a blind eye now. We also are human. It is in our nature to think, to imagine, to write, to make art. Why, then, are we so eager to hand these gifts off to a soulless machine that can only cobble together bland echoes of what humans have already made?
This semester, try logging off. Even just for a week. Write out your notes instead of typing them and see how your recall of content and attentiveness in class changes. Visit the CU Writing Center if you’re stuck on an assignment. Relish the early fall air while doodling on Farrand Field. Type a poem in your notes app and show it to all your friends, or no one at all. It’s a beautiful day to have a brain.