Tempted by ‘the Easter Bunny’s eeeeggs’

STANDING in a supermarket queue the other day, I witnessed the cutest conversation ever. Well, when I say ‘conversation’ I actually mean it was more of a monologue.

A four-year-old laaitie in a Spiderman suit was trying to attract his father’s attention. “Daddy, Daddy, look at the Easter Bunny’s eeeeggs.” There was no response. He repeated, “Daddy, Daddy, look at the Easter Bunny’s eeeeggs.” Nothing.

From what I know about parenting, I suspect that Daddy knew that if he engaged this tiny Spiderman, the next step would be a request for an Easter Bunny eeeegg, so Dad kept his attention focused on the phone in his hand.

A third, and fourth time, the same phrase was repeated. Softly, politely, without a hint of demand, “Daddy, Daddy, look at the Easter Bunny’s eeeeggs.” I am sure that other people in the queue didn’t even hear him; he was that reserved.

Being ignored by his dad must have been strange to him, because his next utterance was priceless. “Daddy, Daddy,” he said, “But I can hear my voice …”

I chuckled silently. Here was a young child absolutely perplexed as to why his loving dad was ignoring him, completely unaware of the dynamics of parenting and the fine line an adult has to navigate in order to mould a young mind.

But more and more these days young minds are breaking away from their dependence on adult wisdom. It seems as if the youth are finding their own sources of information that to them are more relevant and entertaining.

These days, thanks to access to news via social media platforms, clever young people are posting witty, entertaining videos commenting on current events, and their followers are lapping it up.

Granted, it’s admirable and encouraging that the youth are being kept abreast of what is going on in the news, yet at the same time a bit disturbing that their opinions are being shaped by filtered and biassed commentary.

That may not sound all that alarming. However, more than a century ago in a periodical called the Review and Herald, one article had a very interesting quote, as if the writer foresaw what was coming in our day.

The quote read: “If you allow another to do your thinking for you, you will have crippled energies and contracted abilities. There are many whose intellects are dwarfed because they confine them to dwell upon commonplace subjects. You should wrestle with problems of thought that require the exercise of the best powers of your mind.”

Are the youth, these days – by surrendering their thinking to someone who “says it better” – becoming ‘clever’ without becoming wiser?

And it’s not only the youth. Big media outlets are stringing people along with versions of truth. Do you watch CNN or Fox News? Are you left wing or right wing? Do you prefer the tabloids or mainstream media? These days it’s so hard to discover the facts because there are so many varying versions of the ‘truth’ flying about.

During a training session one day, I remember the facilitator saying that newspapers dare not tell the truth – I frowned, thinking that didn’t seem right – but he continued, “it’s the duty of a newspaper to report on the facts, whether they like it or not, and leave it to the reader to decide what’s true.”

Unlike tiny Spiderman, this problem will not stop nagging if we ignore it, in fact it will just balloon out of proportion.

On the one hand, my concern is that the youth who follow the clever, entertaining, witty news commentary on social media may make the mistake of using this commentary to shape their perceptions. I don’t know how many people these days will even bother to double check information that they receive, mainly because fact-checking is not as entertaining as a TikTok clip.

On the other hand, as for us adults, the problem is much the same. Do people even know how often they have received fake news via social media? Or have they even bothered to check before hitting the ‘forward’ button?

If you think about it, even how we do conversation has changed; in the past conversation was about people sitting in a group sharing opinions, ideas and their version of the facts. There was healthy discussion, disagreements, debates and even arguments, but at the end of the day, minds were being engaged and actual thinking was taking place.

These days, what has conversation become? Slipping your phone under someone’s nose with a video clip or a text message or a sound byte. And once the media has been delivered, your point has been made.

Oh, and if you think that I am an innocent observer of this trend, think again. I am just as guilty of exposing people to my ‘phone-versation’; it’s a real temptation.

And now there’s a new problem arising.

In a recent article on this paper’s website, I read that “when AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT was made available to the public. It soon became the fastest-growing app in history, reaching 100 million monthly users in two months.”

This was followed by a disturbing comment. “In April, Twitter CEO Elon Musk joined thousands in signing an open letter calling for a six-month pause in the development of systems more powerful than OpenAI’s recently-launched GPT-4.”

Why the alarm? Already I am concerned that students could be turning in AI-generated assignments, and qualifying on the back of a bot. I don’t know if it’s possible, but I am concerned. Is this what Musk and thousands of others are worried about?

We need to have a serious chat about letting AI bots loose on our assignments. Sure, it sounds like a match made in heaven – you get to sit back and let the bots do all the heavy lifting while you chill with a margarita.

But let’s be real, these bots aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the shed. They can only work with what they’ve been given, which means they lack the imaginative and critical thinking skills that make humans so darn special.

And let’s not forget about the chance of these bots plagiarising someone else’s work. Plus, there’s always the risk of these bots making silly mistakes and showing bias. So, let’s cut the AI bots some slack and let them stick to what they’re good at – making sci-fi movies and crushing us at chess.

And how real is this threat of AI fooling people? Here’s how – in this column, there are three paragraphs, just 169 words, that I never wrote. It was generated by an AI bot; can you identify which 169 words?

Maybe it’s time for humans to reclaim our minds; we have been ignoring them for long enough now, and they are screaming for our attention saying, “But I can hear my own voice!”