Sam Altman is right

I was watching this interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and one thing he said has really stuck with me: the real point of generative AI and large language models like ChatGPT is the democratization of knowledge. The way he explained it was, when asked something to the effect of what excited him most/what he thought was most important about an innovation like ChatGPT, he answered that he thinks it would be amazing to have the world’s greatest and most knowledgeable tutor in everyone’s pocket.

And he’s absolutely right.

There’s such a rush to figure out (a) how to get rich off of generative AI and which jobs/companies are going to suffer because of it, and (b) whether this is the start of creating evil artificial intelligence that’s going to take over the world and kill us all, that most people are missing the really amazing thing here.

We’re all so used to Google being the best way to find information now, and it was so much better than everything before it, that we don’t usually clock just how inefficient it is. You put in some search terms or ask a question, and then either

  • click on the relevant wikipedia article and skim that, or
  • search through the short descriptions of what Google says are the most relevant pages and start clicking through and reading them

Frankly, unless you’re very good at Google-fu and it’s a straightforward thing you’re looking for, it usually takes awhile and doesn’t always yield the best results.

In a lot of cases, I’ve essentially replaced Google-ing with asking ChatGPT. Now, you have to be careful - ChatGPT does hallucinate, so if it’s something important you’re after it’s best to check your facts. But, generally speaking, chatting with an very well-read language model in a conversational, back-and-forth fashion in which you can ask for further clarification, or for examples, or for things to be dumbed-down for you, is incredibly fast and useful.

And Altman’s right - imagine having that when you were in school.

Sure, there’s lots of good arguments about cheating, and not learning certain basic skills. But they also said a lot of that about calculators, and honestly how many of us are going around doing complex math in our heads or with pen and paper?

At its best, a product like ChatGPT is an incredibly intelligent, patient, malleable tutor that can teach anyone better and faster than anything else currently possible.

I can sit there and ask it to explain brand new concepts to me, generate compare-and-contrast tables about any multiple topics I want, tell it when I need further clarification, ask it to explain ideas to me by referencing subjects I’m already comfortable with, test out new thoughts and ideas on it - all without clicking through and reading websites, or having to worry about pissing off or exhausting someone I’m talking to.

Can you imagine what kind of educational tool this could be for students? Especially those struggling with particular disadvantages who might need a little bit of personalized support and attention?

Hell, I wasn’t a huge math fan, but I bet I could’ve done pretty well in math if I had had ChatGPT to teach me quadratic equations step by step.

Imagine a world in which everyone had instant access to all (or at least a whole lot more) of the factual information they needed. In my little corner of the world (the criminal justice system), I can tell you that most of the help people need to navigate the courts isn’t legal advice, it’s legal information that the powers that be do a pretty poor job of communicating in an effective fashion. Imagine having a tool that could explain to you the basics of your legal problem, what courts to go to, what forms you need to fill out, the basics of filling out those forms, and what the process would look like after that? It wouldn’t replace lawyers, but it would help a whole lot of self-reps, and take a whole lot of pressure off of court staff.

Now it’s not totally untrue or unwarranted that we should pay alot of attention to how we will (inevitably) misuse AI for commercial and/or harmful purposes. But we should also take a minute to appreciate just how incredible it is that anyone with a device and an internet connection can do all of this, essentially for free.

Maybe only nerds like me who spend all day googling and learning about stuff see it this way. But as someone whose favourite hobby has always been googling, learning with ChatGPT is easily my new favourite thing.

Assuming computers, internet, and mobile were the first three digital revolutions, we are clearly entering the fourth one - the age of AI.

Unfortunately, ChatGPT definitely doesn’t know everything - and can be a bit of a dick about it…

Yikes. Thanks mom. I’m working on it.