By Dr Pavan Soni
And yet the moment I opened the word document the first prompt was from an AI assistant which I had to force close. Many claim that AI tools are just about harmless technological agents easing our lives and assisting us at best. But I guess the agent is fast contesting the principal. Several even equate today’s AI tools to the humble calculators and dictionaries of the yesteryears. But the analogy is too simplistic at best. For starters, you always invoked a dictionary or a thesaurus and not close one which showed up every other sentence. That’s where Copilot is worse than useless. I reckon it’s robbing users of their originality in the pretext of offering greater efficiencies and accuracy. If left unchecked, such tools can undo decades of real gains that firms like Microsoft helped us all achieve.
When Microsoft was conceived by Bill Gates and Paul Allen they had set out with an ambitious vision of putting a computer on every desk and in every home. It was a laudable cause, notwithstanding the capitalistic undertones and the negative economic externalities owing to monopolistic practices. Over the decades, thanks to hardware clones and software piracy, Gates did largely achieve the intent and secured the title of world’s richest man. A title that he enjoyed for most of his life, thanks to his intelligence, grit and cunningness as a businessperson. For most of us, he was and remains a hero, especially with what he managed to do on societal terms with his wealth. I hugely admire his vision, scale of execution and advocacy on critical issues.
However, lately Microsoft and companies like Google, Meta and other tech magnets of high-end talent have busied themselves into labor-substituting innovations, chiefly AI. Promised as labour-saving and productivity-enhancing tools, most of AI contraptions, which often grow at our own expense, swiftly ease us out of vital human skills. For instance, making ppts, with rich colours and content was a skill that you honed over multiple iterations, which could now be achieved with a few simple prompts. Iterations happen here too, but this time, technology is iteratively inching closer to what you could do, or what suits you. Eventually what’s the skill left of you? Validating if technology is human enough?
If an AI model could summarize a research paper into a para and even help you write one, don’t you think it’s us being used by technology than the other way around? If every time you write a sentence the Copilot prompts you with a better sentence, don’t you start doubting your writing skills? You might soon start giving into the temptation of not writing anything per say. Just dictate it in your native lingo and the engine should do the rest for you.
If the claim is that such tools make you better at anything, well, it’s largely unfounded. It’s akin to saying that a word correction (red wiggly lines in MS Word) makes you better at spellings. But is it really the case? You lazily type almost anything knowing very well that it’s taken care of and then the moral hazard sets in that you can get away with spelling errors. To discover the truth, write an essay on paper and check your grammar and spellings. No word processor made you any better.
It’s not that Google’s Gemini is any saint, but Microsoft’s Copilot is encroaching a holy and rather personal space. It’s coming right between you and your canvas, uninvited. With Google Search or any other Meta tool, I must take the efforts of reaching out and keying in text, but Microsoft has made it dangerously invasive. The company has made it far too easy for me to give up the already fading resolve to be a better writer, or a presentation maker, or a wizard on excel sheets. It’s too tempting to give into those nudges, which are not always better for you, or hardly original. And with more of such technologies pervading our lives, we are becoming more of same. A sea of AI-powered clones. Our presentations look similar, our essays read familiar, and eventually we all settle to the lowest common denominator, dictated by technological possibilities.
Coming back to this piece. Would the Copilot or any other AI tool do a better job at writing this piece? Certainly. It can identify numerous flaws with my writing style, that it is not in line with the trends, that sentences could have been better structured et al., but I wonder if I would have become a better writer in the bargain. It’s too tempting to invoke the calculator when faced with two-digit multiplications, which otherwise might be in the realms of mental maths. Resultingly, we shudder at the very thought of calculations, writing speeches, making presentations, and creating stuff in general.
AI could be the last help we need on the way to becoming more creative. At least, the companies like Microsoft can delay the decline by going easy on pushing technology down the throat of humanity. Beyond the fact that the company is meeting its numbers, no other benefit of this rampant AI proliferation is evident. The benefits could be limited to the shareholders of such tech firms, but the cost is borne by humanity. Hope the AI engines do not strangle this article midway.
The writer is the bestselling author of the books Design Your Thinking and Design Your Career.
Disclaimer
This piece was not written by or with the help of Copilot or any other AI tool.
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