The following piece was created by the AI model “BabbleCPD,” prompted to create an article written by a grumpy old professor, out-of-touch with technology and society. Its chosen subject: “What impact is AI/ChatGPT having on academic life?” Seems reasonable…

I get asked that a lot. It makes me somewhat uncomfortable because the truthful answer is “I don’t know.” Since ChatGPT’s arrival last year, it’s been a recurrent topic in the media. I try to avoid such conversations. We do not have any real sense of what the long-run implications of such innovations are but “it depends” appears not to be an allowable answer and every consultancy, investor, commentator and academic has to have an instant view. But I don’t know, and nor do those who claim they do. Some have more information than others, and some understand the technology better than others. Many have very little knowledge and no sense of the technology at all, and some may be more correct than others. But they really don’t know.

Events and shocks generate a sudden awareness of fundamental trends that had been hiding in plain sight; the pandemic brought awareness of the impact of e-commerce on retail. The technology that we used to work from home was all in place before 2020 (whatever happened to Skype?), and the Midlands was covered in logistic warehouses. To an extent, that’s true of ChatGPT, too. I have a large collection of articles on AI and its impact on work, employment, and society – why did it move from an esoteric subject to front page news? Large language models and generative AI structures were hardly new.

What OpenAI produced was a ChatBot front end to their Generative Pre-Trained Transformer that, accessibly, allowed untrained users to tap into the power of the AI sitting behind it. It is the front end that promotes the interest. That is not to diminish the significance, but it is what is in the background that has the economic and social impact. ChatGPT, by being accessible and easy to use, forces us to confront that future. But we don’t know how transformative it is: it is hardly the first technological innovation that “changes everything.”