Do you have an important exam tomorrow, but just can’t bring yourself to grab your heavy, densely worded textbook to study? Are you feeling too tired to write out your own thoughtful response to that email? Maybe you want to predict the lyrics to the next Taylor Swift single. If you relate to this, then you have probably used the AI software ChatGPT sometime since its smashing debut in November 2022. You’re not the only one. Records show that ChatGPT’s website currently has over a billion visitors per month, and gained 1 million users within 5 days of release. For reference, it took Facebook over 6 months to gain its first million, and Instagram took around 2.5 months for the same statistic.

Why do we value this so much? On the surface, ChatGPT is a tool simply used as a source of information, assistance with writing, and fun side projects like telling stories or making songs. Harmless tasks! But there’s a more compelling pull behind ChatGPT than just fun–the same reason why we all carry around smartphones, drive cars, and order take-out: it makes our lives easier. ChatGPT can perform a task within seconds that would normally take us hours of exhaustingly tedious work. This power is severely underestimated by most, and can be utilized to transform our lives to a degree beyond what our current imagination allows.

In March 2023, a group of Stanford students developed an iteration of ChatGPT which showcased the potential of the software to drastically alter the way that humans interact with each other, and converse on a daily basis. Students developed a pair of glasses, equipped with a vocal recognition software that can listen to conversations and have ChatGPT generate a response displayed on the glasses lens for you to reply with. This product, called Charisma as a Service (CaaS), was designed with the intention of providing assistance during interviews, meetings, dates, or just a confidence boost for those who lack conversational skills. Having an AI speak through your voice might sound like an easy way to ruin a first date, but for those of you who have spent time using ChatGPT, you will know it outputs frighteningly accurate and professional responses to given prompts. This means that supposedly CaaS will give you a literal social superpower: the ability to speak more confidently and proficiently than any human ever could. 

Of course, having more fluent conversation is not going to turn anybody into the next Iron Man, but augmenting our reality in this manner with AI does seem like the first step to the premise of a sci-fi movie. The advancements of human technology are constant, and the human desire to make our lives easier isn’t going away. If we are already at a point where generating human conversation through AI is possible, how long will it take until the majority of our interactions are just replaced with AI? When will we be sending fully automated text messages at the push of a button, and having full conversations with friends and family without even speaking or thinking towards them at all? 

Humans are known to be impressionable creatures who adapt their behaviors to be more similar to those around them. If we are constantly absorbing information and conversation data from AI, then we will start to think and behave more similarly to said AI, almost as if we are viewing this imitation of human thought as “perfect” compared to our own brains. It’s already quite difficult to distinguish between ChatGPT writing and actual human responses, but as of right now, ChatGPT still lacks a lot of human characteristics. In conversations with ChatGPT, it often mentions its own lack of feelings and emotions–which are innate to us humans. Should we be concerned about constantly absorbing information and taking feedback from this emotionless machine? It might take a long time, but humans could slowly adapt towards an apathetic society, where real conversation has become replaced with cold machine speak. Our conversations could become only those of practicality, purely to satisfy the needs of interactions for productivity and industry, without any of the effort put towards meaningful interpersonal conversation we currently engage in.

This idea of reality is terrifying, but hopefully it is a far stretch from where we are now. However, there is a big takeaway to come from this discussion. Go talk to your friends. Take a trip to the beach, sit under the stars and discuss life, express your emotions! Appreciate and take advantage of all the opportunities you have to initiate deep, thoughtful conversations. Try to remember how good it feels to express yourself and share emotions with others, before it is no longer an option. While AI may be able to write lyrics and poetry, it will never be able to express them with the heart of us humans.

Note: This article was not written with the assistance of ChatGPT or any other AI writing software. 100% human thoughts and ideas.