AI is a Gimmick

In his article "Some Say AI is the Greatest Invention in the World. I Don't Get It," Freddie deBoer skewers those who think that AI can out-do plumbing...or the bowl! 

He states, 

The conversation about artificial intelligence remains absurd, hype-ridden, and utterly out of touch with actual material reality. I could have written that sentence in 2024, 2023, or 2022, and it would have also been true.

I concur. I have not changed my mind about AI since the first email within the college environment that proclaimed, "It can write as good as a student!" 

I looked at the provided example and went..."Not!" 

Sure, if the student is a student using AI. Or a Harvard professor. (They write about the same.) But not if the writer is actually trying to communicate anything to anyone with a brain. 

AI remains repetitive, full of logical fallacies, and a conveyor of generic and often inacccurate information. My librarian friends--some of them--and Ted Chiang at The New York Times continue to point out the damage to community. 

And I have noted, as an instructor, a growing inability for students to problem solve truly basic issues, precisely because they are relying on AI to do their thinking for them. Students in English 100 are not "closing the gap" when they use AI. They are falling further behind their peers who don't use it.

What has amazed me the most is the lack of fundamental skepticism. Skepticism, which professors and students and textbook companies demonstrated (correctly) when Wikipedia came into being (I'm a fan of Wikipedia but it is a tertiary source), seems to fly out the window when AI is placed on the table. 

From a critical thinking perspective--and a rational commonsense perspective--information should always be checked. If one source claims that safe and ethical human cloning is possible within 6 months, it is wise to check that claim against other sources/experts. If my mechanic keeps telling me things about my car that result in $1000 bills, it is a wise for me to get a second opinion. 

When googling these days, I negative out AI. Why waste my time? Seriously! I would check the information against multiple other sources anyway. Why start at a dead end? 

Especially after AI told me that Samuel Richardson wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. 

But even if AI's information was correct, I wouldn't bother. It's white-noise: blah, blah, blah. 

And then the grown-ups go and actually learn and test things.

AI is the equivalent of Ouija boards.