I’m not overexaggerating.
In recent years we have gotten used to having everything the second we want it. Online orders arrive the next day, shows have to be consumed (not watched) in the first week they are launched, food is bought precooked so it is ready in minutes, etc.
We have lost our patience, our ability to be bored.
And more recently, AI is making it so we don’t even consider learning, studying and researching.
I was always a very curious child and I wanted to know lots of things about the world, thus I looked up words in encyclopedias and watched documentaries about the world on TV. When the internet arrived at home a revolution happened. I could look up information online, I could watch videos on demand about topics I was interested in. I could study how things worked.
One of the things I was crazy about was English. I wanted to learn it to be able to access more information online and to speak and interact with people from other countries.
To be completely honest, Google Translate was one of my main tools at the time to access foreign websites and it was a tool that, with huge flaws helped me skim through information in my language. But, I was hungry for more. I wanted to understand and interact without having to rely on Google: I wanted to do it by myself.
And, with that idea in mind, I decided to major in English at university.
Best decision of my life.
English has given me everything I have: a passion, a job, travels, friends, and lots of good memories. Besides English, I have also dipped my toes in German (6 years), French (6 years), Japanese (6 years), and I know some sentences in Russian, Polish, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, Chinese, and Classic Arabic.
And now, at 30 years old, all you see is the result. You can’t see the effort, the eagerness to learn, the struggles, the connections your brain has to do to learn the language.
So what do recent AI developments have to do with this?
People have stopped putting in the effort. They input some prompt in a textbox and get an image or a text, a translation or an essay. They have stopped thinking, using their brain. Accepting what the machine vomits without doubting if it’s right or wrong. Without double-checking.
And that makes me sad. We are thoughts, reflections, doubts, discussions, creativity, discovery. That is what makes us human and we are letting machines take that from us. Taken our humanity, our brain activity.
Letting machines take that from us is making us dumber. «Why think when machine do trick?»
I implore you:
― Take up a hobby that makes you create, that makes you think. There are lots: writing, painting, drawing, playing an instrument, learning a language, doing pottery, dancing, you name it.
― Don’t let companies (that profit from AI) make you think you need their technologies: we can keep learning without them, we can create beautiful things without them, we can work without them. People will value things with a soul, things created by humans, not by a machine.
― Take it slow: there’s no rush. Half of the fun is the process and it’s the only way to learn. Be patient and enjoy the ride. You cannot master a skill unless you do it a lot.
― Interact with people, in person: forget messaging apps, we need to talk to people, see their faces, their reactions. Humans are sociable creatures and interacting makes us more empathetic, more understanding, better people.
I love technology, and I believe the internet is one of the best inventions ever. But we need to set boundaries: we cannot let them take the little freedom we still have,
we cannot let them take our souls.
This post has been written in English by a human, using his own thoughts. No AI has been involved in the creation or translation of this piece of writing. Just effort and creativity.
And that is beautiful.