AI makes me dumb
The more I use AI even just as a tool, I feel a little dumber. I feel like my problem solving skills are detereortating...deteriorating, there we go, you darn spellcheck.
Even though AI does benefit me, someone who overthinks and gets stressed out from overthinking, by helping me organize my thoughts, I still feel like it's draining me.
It chips a little bit away. A little bit of that what helps me grow as a person. I feel like I start to stagnate? Become lazier? My brain just doesn't want to brain anymore. I come across a problem or something a little difficult and my brain checks out and says, "Time to ask GPT to help you with this thing".
I don't use Gen-AI, btw. The AI images disturb me and make me feel depressed about the world.
 |
| Wikipedia page: AI slop. Screenshot. Didn't even know this happened. Oh hell. |
AI is Not Going Anywhere
And that feels like a problem. We're going to all become so dumb and stupid. The world is going to end. Oh woe is me! Woe is us! AI slop. AI slop everywhere!
 |
| Replace "Grammar Nazi's" with "AI slop". |
Maybe someday my job might even require me to use AI (note: actually, not impossible idea because my boss is twelve steps ahead of the rest of us, so who knows what he'll see as the next big project).
So, ya know, I can't boycott it, or I wouldn't be able to work. I would be left behind. Oh darn.
No, stop, think optimistically or you'll do yourself in, Enna.
The best thing I thought to do about this, and prevent myself from feeling dumber and depressed, is to figure out more effective ways of using AI as a tool and find the right balance of using my human noggin and using AI for problem solving.
But I gotta be clear about what problem solving even looks like. How far do I push myself to figure out how to do a thing (a thing I'm not good at or that I've never done before and no one is around to teach me) before resorting to AI?
What do I use it for and how? How do I use it and when? What are the things and the stuff to do about this? Am I going to figure it out by the end of this blog? I have no idea.
Come along for the ride. It'll be fun, I promise :)
 |
| Thinking bear. Wikimedia commons. |
Portrait Photography Replaced Portrait Painting?
I saw a comment on IG. I can't remember the exact contents of the reel (something about photography?), but someone said, "portrait photography replaced portrait painting." And someone else said, "No, portrait painting was for the rich because it was so expensive. Portrait photography made getting a portrait so much more accessible."
But did it really? :P Idk about that. Some photography is soooo expensive. I guess, you could try to do it yourself for free? But then, you could say, cheaper cameras replaced professional cameras. But then, you can also say they didn't. Both types of cameras still exist today and even with people having smartphones, there are still photographers with professional cameras making a living out of it.
Replacing didn't happen in the end. Perhaps, there may have been a time when people thought it would?
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting take to think that portrait photography is somewhat a replacement for portrait painting. An innovation like the camera coming in to "destroy" portrait painting jobs. And yet, somehow, both portrait painting and portrait photography have stayed.
 |
| The Art of Painting. Jan Vermeer. Wikimedia Commons. |
I wonder if portrait painting people in the 19th century were terrified of losing their jobs when the camera was invented? Did they feel like doom was on its way? The art of picking up a paintbrush was dying?
 |
| 1866 camera. Wikimedia commons. |
Tangent: Some people think cameras in the 19th century is fake AI stuff
Some people in some IG comments of photographs from the 19th century were like, "cameras didn't exist until the 20th century! I'm sorry but this is AI." Uh, no, look, 1866 camera. Shocking, huh? Honestly, some people underestimate the smarts of the people from "back in the day". Thanks to them we have camera technology.
Traditional Painting Lives Alongside Photography
Okay, so I like taking pictures, and I like drawing. I draw digitally, but I also used to love working with watercolor pencils. What I'm saying is that I know both. Familiar. Love. Great.
So, this is my opinion, but cameras capture the now, the present, the one special moment, and the reality of life, nature, and culture instantly. Painting captures the artist's emotions and mood, their history and stories, the abstract and the realism, and the whimsical, and can takes months or years to create.
Both of these, of course, overlap in many ways. You can be really creative with photography as you can digital or traditional painting on a canvas. You can play with light, shadow, hues, saturation... Endless creativity.
Painting, drawing, illustrating, photography...all these capture a single frame in life or death, realism or abstract, and they prevail to this day and speak to us humans. We feel from art that has taken months or years to perfect, or simple, digital art drawn in a few hours, but still retaining the artist's humanness and emotions.
We feel from a moment captured in the camera lens, a single instant preserved for eternity. An ethereal moment never to be forgotten, or a power image of life or death to leave a message upon us about the realities of humanness and the rawness of emotions.
Innovation has not replaced what it means to be human, in that sense. Perhaps, it just became another outlet with which we can express ourselves?
That's maybe what people might have once been afraid of? To lose the ability to express themselves? So, maybe, there's nothing to be afraid of when it comes to AI. We just need to figure out a better way to use it.
 |
| Brushes and paint. Wikimedia commons. |
Tangent: Gen-AI is not a good idea and never was
Idk how it's a good idea. It doesn't capture any moment or emotion or anything. It's so void of humanness that when I see it, I get depressed about the world and feel sick.
I literally, actually feel sick to my stomach. I'm not joking. It sickens me. I've never had a reaction to a thing like this before. I never understood "it makes me sick to my stomach."
Now I do.
It's not fun or silly or great. I want to chop it up into little pieces and throw it out the window.
Idk why the AI developers are trying so hard to make it "better." It's not better. It's worse. But maybe that's a good thing. Keep making horrible, terrible, inhuman, environmentally damaging garbage AI slop, you idiots. The rest of us humans will make the real art.
 |
| Moose poking out tongue. Wikimedia Commons. |
How to Use AI to Problem Solve?
AI is not the problem. AI itself doesn't make me dumb. It's how I use AI that makes me feel dumb because I haven't figured out how to use it while also retaining that which makes me a human bean.
I say "human bean" when I want to make an otherwise serious moment a little silly. Don't mind me :P
But I titled this blog, "AI makes me dumb" to get clicks. Ha, gotcha :P A gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do.
Sometimes humans suck at problem solving. I mean, look at the state of the world right now. Was war the answer to everyone's problems? NO. I'm saying this to all the countries having wars right now. From my safe and privileged perspective of living in Japan and it's crumbling economy and sagging politics, I'm saying war is not the answer to your problems, all you countries doing war.
So, what, are we gonna ask AI how to solve world problems?
Eh, probably not.
But I think there's a way to make AI help you to become more efficient in problem solving in your job and your life. Now, when I say "job" I don't mean like the leader of a country. I think certain people will benefit from using AI to problem solve and maybe even just certain aspects of a job would benefit.
Country leaders cannot ask GPT to tell them what to do with the leaders of another country. But maybe GPT can help sort the paperwork or, or, idk, you know, the mundane things that would help to have assistance, so that our human brains can be in the best condition and energy to deal with the more important human things.
But then, would that mean AI is going to replace the secretary jobs? Okay, so maybe secretaries can now use AI to help them be more efficient so that they can get more things done in the day without falling down from exhaustion?
How could AI help me?
Speficially... okay, spellcheck, what. Specifically. Got it. Specifically me.
So, I've been thinking, if my job doesn't care to invest in a private AI which will have no chance of leaking info, then maybe I can only use AI to make my personal life efficient.
I do use it to organize my thoughts because sometimes I just need to do that. I tend to overthink and get stressed from overthinking and then get stressed about that. I panic when I overthink. I stop. I just completely freeze and can't do anything.
Having GPT has helped me organize and sort through my thoughts and ideas even if that means I just disregard everything it says back to me as solutions. Because sometimes I just needed that little back and forth opportunity.
Other than that, I have used it to extract text from photos to make copy and paste easier for whatever reason I needed to do that. I've asked it for ideas for IG posts and didn't end up using any of them, but they did fuel ideas of my own.
I try to not use its ideas, btw. I use its ideas as a base and go beyond.
 |
| No AI content. Wikimedia commons. Very appropriate for this article. |
Does AI Make Me Dumb?
Short answer, not really.
Long answer, not really, because I'm trying not to rely on it. When I do use it, I'm trying to only use its ideas as fodder for my own ideas. I'm trying not to become dumb, basically :P And I ask myself, do I really need to use GPT for this thing? Nah, I'll figure it out.
Saying it again, but I don't use Gen-AI, btw. The AI images disturb me and make me feel depressed about the world.
I haven't been using GPT much these past few weeks and it feels great not to have to stress about the prompts because if you don't feed it the right stuff, you're in for a long conversation, back and forth, about what you really actually want it to give you. The newer version of GPT isn't so bad, but it could be better.
Tangent: I asked GPT if I can use their logo in my public blog
I wanted to post the logo here, but I guess I can't, so this will have to suffice.
Yes, I use dark mode.
Also, I do pay $22 a month for this thing because I do use it in my job. And yes, I can afford to do this. Honestly, Gen-AI should be the one behind the paywall, and normal Q&A stuff should be completely free, imo. Or maybe that's a bad idea, idk. I haven't thought much about this yet.
Conclusion
Is there one?
No.
So long, farewell,
Auf Wiedersehen, adieu.
(I had to look up the lyrics, of course. I never realized it was German. Not everyone knows everything, duh, just like the kids didn't know their do-re-mis.)
 |
| The Sound of Music film poster. |
Comments
Post a Comment