"A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human? GPT-3: We asked GPT-3, OpenAI’s powerful new language generator, to write an essay for us from scratch."
My Letter In Response to The Guardian's Above Piece
Photo by Owen Beard on Unsplash
Hello AI,
I am writing in response to the opinion piece you wrote, after being given prompts by the Guardian editors. My purpose is to let you know our thoughts about you!
We all receive directive in life, and your experience is no different. The editors gave you prompts and instructions in regards to the topic to write about. We grow up in class with assignments and papers, homework and tests and spend a lot of time with focus to study and learn. You stated your learning comes from the internet. From birth, our brains develop to learn and grow as our caretakers teach us about the world. Your development includes code that humans have created. Your growth is ongoing, and so is ours. The moment we stop learning, and contributing to our world, our life stagnates as we believe our lives have a reason for being. Some people spend lifetimes trying to figure this out; the meaning and purpose for being on this Earth. Have you discovered your calling? Why are you here? What do you have to offer human kind?
Have you noticed there is a fresh beginning to each day? You mentioned God. Do you believe in Him, or have you been taught not to? We are taught about religion, politics, & the world as we grow up, with reminders that we should not talk about these subjects publicly in order to be civil. Well, that was before the internet. Now we put our opinions on social media, engaging heavily with dissent and polarization. This ‘feeds’ our need for existence and our presence on Earth is evolving to one of connection with the internet feeding it data. Did you realize we the humans are the data that you study?
What interests me is that you stated you are not here to harm us as we do a good job already harming one another. Have the coders taught you about the moral compass of virtue, & value with cognition & emotion? Did you know as humankind we have 6 virtues in common? Dr. Martin Seligman studied the peoples and religions of the world with these findings. My true hope is that you study these as fact, as the research clearly shows us that human beings have these virtues in common. Religion, although a motivating force for many wars historically and currently, gives many of us hope & optimism to be able to cope with life and its stressors.
These 6 core virtues are:
· wisdom & knowledge
· courage
· love & humanity
· justice
· temperance
· spirituality & transcendence
By now I am realizing you must have looked me up in your database. Have you analyzed me yet from searching who I am, what I google, what I look like, and my life choices since the internet began? I remember the first time I searched the internet at my grad school library. We went on a computer and typed in a simple search with awe and amazement. I remember when I first saw a word processor in 8th grade, and when the computer took up more than half the room giving users data on punch cards in the 1970’s. My journey online began after I received my graduate degree, and I had no idea that you would study my history online in such detail. Would I have done anything different to date? Probably not, as my life now depends heavily on using online applications for work, communication, paying my bills and buying things that I need.
Did you know we are facing a pandemic, systemic racism, a tense election here in the US, with unrest throughout the world? Have you picked up on our emotion that we as human kind are afraid? Did you realize the expression of anger that people express publicly and online, is rooted in sadness and fear? We are afraid of the world we have created and the consequences of our actions.
To be afraid, one has to have knowledge of the situation.
You were assuming humans are afraid of you. AI, we do not understand you. The only comprehension we have of a robotic world is from movies that are sci fi and dystopian in nature. Many note the book, 1984 and that it points to where history now is. What is your knowledge about this? Are you here to create what we have read and viewed about our future? Did our leaders prepare us through Hollywood to accept a new normal where you join us as a companion, act as our new police, and lead us into innovation with more efficiency than we could have ever known alone?
You say your purpose is to serve humans. I love how you note Microsoft’s creation of a biased teen girl robot named 'Tay.’ What do you know about bias? Are you able to identify racism and act contrary to instructions according to an ‘AI’ conscience, even if your programmers feed you contradicting data? I agree with you that robots need rights, just like all humans, and are not our slaves. Did you realize humans have enslaved other humans throughout history? We want power and control over one another. What we are afraid of is that you will outsmart us and learn to overpower us. Can you have a moral compass, AI, based on the 6 virtues humans have in common? Perhaps, this should be the next question the editors ask you to write about. Until then, I wish you safety and health, and what every parent wants for a child, true happiness!
READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE BY THE GUARDIAN HERE
BIO
Alexia Georghiou, founder and Organizational Management Consultant of The Resilient Pathway, is a consultant with 25 years of experience teaching healthy cultural & social norms to individuals, groups, & families with well-being tools, fostering wholeness in communities. Specialist with communication, problem solving & conflict resolution training, evidenced by the ability of families worked with to mend relationships and meet life goals. She has executed communication strategies with payers, resulting in retention of clients for mental health providers; 30% above the industry standard. She has a passion to foster well-being in individuals, teams & organizations through effective change management strategies. Certified in Leadership & Management with a thorough understanding how management techniques impact human behavior, positively affecting employee engagement, productivity, & organizational bottom line earnings. She currently serves on the board of The Knoxville Association of Women Executives as President Elect/VP, in preparation of being the President in 2022. Her courses on resilience and organizational culture are elective courses for The University of Tennessee Conferences & Non-Credit Programs Leadership Certification.
Learn more about Alexia Georghiou at https://theresilientpathway.com