Seth Lawrence

ChatGPT is gnarly. Creatives everywhere are: rejoicing, recoiling, cowering, and exalting. The program as an incredible milestone in tech with untapped consequences on the world economy. Entire industries from content creation to legal await the affects of the new technology on their livelihoods. Programs like these are getting much better, more each day. And with answers soon to be at our fingertips we will soon have a choice: do we let computers think for us?

I'd be lying if I haven't tried to get ChatGPT to churn out a finished product.

It is *so* easy. [Students at both Furman University and Northern Michigan University](https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-essays-college-cheating-professors-caught-students-ai-plagiarism-2023-1) have already committed the sin of turning in AI generated work. Hell, I'd be lying if I haven't tried to get ChatGPT to churn out a finished product. Churning out well written, though uninspired, prose at massive volume, it can feel as though you're talking to an all knowing [singularity](https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity). The thing about know-it-alls: they're often wrong.

... it provided five reference dating to the early 2000s. None of the provided paper titles existed, and all provided PubMed IDs (PMIDs) were of different unrelated papers.

Professors caught on to the infractions due to incorrect information. The AI has a tendency to assert falsehoods with incredible confidence (Business Insider). It's like any political news outlet far from center... that eagerly answers questions on complex medical topics. When researchers asked ChatGPT for references, the AI “provided five reference dating to the early 2000s. None of the provided paper titles existed, and all provided PubMed IDs (PMIDs) were of different unrelated papers” (Alkaissi). The AI produces responses with no intelligible trail to follow for fact-checking. This is a problem.

We solve it by sidestep. We can refrain from having it give us the “what,” and rely on it for giving clues to the “how.” After defining my thesis for this blog post, I created my outline using the bot. Because I roughly know how to structure a short essay, I can use ChatGPT as part of the creative process.

ChatGPT can provide the spark to the human engine

Think of ChatGPT as something that provides clarity. Don't think of ChatGPT or AI assist as something to do your job for you. Provide ChatGPT with your goals, and use it as a tool to give you a jump start. It is more important to get started than to be perfect, so feel free to use it for getting started. ChatGPT can provide the spark to the human engine. You.

References

Alkaissi H, McFarlane S I (February 19, 2023) Artificial Hallucinations in ChatGPT: Implications in Scientific Writing. Cureus 15(2): e35179. doi:10.7759/cureus.35179

Business Insider. “Professors Caught Students Cheating on College Essays With ChatGPT.” Business Insider, 26 Dec. 2022, https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-essays-college-cheating-professors-caught-students-ai-plagiarism-2023-1.