Embracing the AI revolution, human style

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its phenomenal popularity with us, the users, remind me of Seven of Nine, the Borg character from the Star Trek: Voyager TV series.

Seven was originally human, before her Borg assimilation, and later, when liberated by the crew of Star Trek, she was working on reclaiming her lost humanity, while retaining some of her Borg knowledge. She is half-human, half AI, or something like that.

Technological innovations like AI can analyse data by using algorithms and improve our performance, our ability to perform simple tasks, such as learning, reasoning, and problem-solving, that, in any circumstances, would require human intelligence. With this AI breakthrough, we have now become half-human and full lazy.

Bringing AI into the lives of ordinary people is a stroke of genius, but for older people of Generation X, who are still in the workforce, this knowledge and know-how gave rise to complexes. Terms like algorithms, data, and performance remind me of my math teacher in detention class, and are downright too much of a stress for me, a happy human of Generation X.

In such a technologically awkward moment, I was introduced to ChatGPT, a conversational AI chatbot, by a junior colleague when he saw me struggling to translate a big Bangla script.

And in the blink of an eye, the 1,000-word document got translated as soon as I pressed the button. I was astounded. I felt like the country mouse visiting the town mouse.

Anyway, leaving aside the corny jokes, I dread handing an assignment to my sub-editors because of my poor grammar, writing errors, and their sneer. So, I have decided to cheat, be corrupted, and ruin my human intelligence to score brownie points with them by chatting with ChatGPT. I now know the shortcut to successful writing.

"Asking AI to write for you is a wasted exercise and robbing yourself of your own skill growth, no matter how tempting the idea of having a write-up in two minutes might sound. And don't think you are fooling anyone; most people can tell when it's AI slop and tune out mid-read.

However, AI is a fantastic assistant if you use it correctly. Here's how to do it right. If you have a write-up to write, do your research, jot down your points, formulate your flow, and just write. Don't bother too much with the grammar or spelling. Just make sure to write and tell your story, however you want. Once done, give it to the AI and simply ask it to format and edit it for clarity and fix any spelling and sentence structure mistakes. The final output will be infinitely better than whatever slop the AI would have come up with if left on its own," says a disciplinarian sub-editor, who works with young writers in an English magazine.

"It's inevitable. It's the future. Students and young office executives will opt for AI assistance for any assignments. However, to know how to properly use AI to your advantage is the point of concern now. Students should be discouraged from uncontrolled, mindless AI usage rather than being deprived of modernisation and technological advancements," says a part-time professor in a reputed university.

"The first indication that anything is written by AI is that it has absolutely no character and no 'signature.' Like a fingerprint, everyone's write-ups are unique from each other. You can claim to tailor your prompts to create a unique write-up, but there is no escaping their bland writing style and even worse humour," the sub-editor vents his frustration with detecting AI presence in write-ups he edits.

So, to sum up, AI is here to stay, reshaping how we think, write, and create. The key lies in balance -- using it wisely to enhance, not replace, our human touch.