The other day while flipping through channels on the TV, my eyes fell on a holiday commercial advertising Coca Cola. I watched with disdain as the screen filled with soulless animations of faintly blurry trains and anthropomorphized polar bears with an almost uncanny valley quality. To top it off, the music playing in the background was a generic, familiar sounding jingle sung by jerky, auto tuned voices. The whole thing was blatantly produced by AI; it was painfully obvious. And the thing was, no matter how fantastical, cheery, or impressive it was or could have been, I was severely disappointed. Because a work of animated videography that was produced to be a whimsical, albeit acquisitive, source of joy, was instead devoid of life and creativity.
It’s a reflection of the direction society is headed. The incentive of businesspeople to bypass thought and creative processes while still making as much money as possible. In my opinion, that’s just about as lame as society can get.
To preface, the point of this PSA is not to catastrophize AI’s imminent usurpation of society, but to condemn and shun its use as a mechanism to replace creativity and cognition.
Recently, AI has become more than just a helpful tool for checking grammar. It has exceeded the realm of revision support and taken on the role of the overeager group partner that willingly does all the work. Except in this case, the partner is not human.
In Falmouth High School, several students have noticed the tendency of others to rely on generative tools in classes that require writing. To senior Adey W., the possibility of diminished cognitive skills is especially concerning. “A big issue with AI is that if you don't use your brain, you start to lose your ability to think clearly and complexly, which is not only avoidable and embarrassing but literally dangerous, especially if it becomes a widespread phenomenon in society” she explained.
It’s also important to think about the implications of how this impacts the work of others. Librarian Kimberly H. at FHS is a writer. I asked her what she thought about the subject. “I don’t like to be mean,” She prefaced. “But I hate [AI] so so much, in large part because of how it has impacted my work. I think there’s a certain type of frustration and disappointment when you’re a writer–when you go to your boss with your work and they ask you ‘yeah but did you use Chat GPT?”
“It’s kind of like telling a football player, ‘yeah, you can play, but we actually got this new robot that is really good, doesn’t require water, and it just downloaded all the plays you practiced.’”
So the use of AI both serves as a cheap knock-off of human thought, and also undermines the work of real people who experience real consequences. “It not only devalues the work that people take pride in, “ Ms. H. finished. “But takes away people’s opportunities to participate in a world that is exciting and challenging.”