Will ChatGPT kill the depth of debate?
Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2025 3:20 am
Legend has it that, while walking through the streets of Quito, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano saw written on a wall: “ When we had all the answers, the questions changed .” It was through Galeano that this adage became widely spread among meeting rooms and self-help social profiles.
This phrase simultaneously carries a beautiful philosophical aura and an obvious rawness. In doing so, it shows us the immense importance of asking correct and changeable questions in order to move forward in the public debate.
It is common knowledge that algorithms and neural networks, which are important parts of AIs like ChatGPT, develop more and more depth and refinement in their responses through questions asked to them by us humans.
See also: Before ChatGPT, ZAHG discussed Artificial Intelligence
And that is exactly where a point of doubt lies that I would like to expose to you, dear reader: are we knowing how to ask the best questions?
If we look at it from the perspective of French political scientist line data Christopher Clavé, the news is not good at all. He claims in his studies that we are becoming less intelligent as a society.
The reason for this dumbing down would be an “impoverishment of language”, resulting from a decrease in lexical knowledge (word repertoire) and in the linguistic subtleties that allow us to elaborate and formulate more complex thoughts.
One of the most noticeable effects is the gradual disappearance of verb tenses. This generates a thought rooted in the present, limited to the moment, incapable of projections in time and, consequently, of more subjective abstractions.
Another pessimistic view of our thinking future comes from another Frenchman, the neuroscientist Michel Desmurget . In his book The Digital Cretins Factory , he claims that the consumption of digital screens is already affecting the IQ of an entire generation. And he uses technical data to prove his thesis.
Desmurget's research presents very convincing results, indicating that fundamental foundations of our intelligence – such as language, focus, memory and culture – are negatively influenced by digital screens. Significant drops in academic performance are pointed out as evidence of this phenomenon.
Desmurget also makes the counterpoint, stating that screens can be beneficial as long as the content consumed is more educational and less recreationally impoverished.
Finally, we cannot leave out of the discussion the accelerated global process of ideological polarization, which places us in an increasingly self-defensive behavior, which generates dialogues only with groups of people who think like us.
As a result, this phenomenon is definitely killing debate, one of the great instruments for critical deepening and generating knowledge.
The end of rhetoric presupposes the end of questions with depth and complexity.
And by being less complex, how will Digital Intelligence feed on our questions? It is clear that its answers will be proportionally shallow and this limits its argumentative development.
Could it be that, by some irony of fate, ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence in general will suffer because of our lack of Natural Intelligence?
I'm sure not.
This phrase simultaneously carries a beautiful philosophical aura and an obvious rawness. In doing so, it shows us the immense importance of asking correct and changeable questions in order to move forward in the public debate.
It is common knowledge that algorithms and neural networks, which are important parts of AIs like ChatGPT, develop more and more depth and refinement in their responses through questions asked to them by us humans.
See also: Before ChatGPT, ZAHG discussed Artificial Intelligence
And that is exactly where a point of doubt lies that I would like to expose to you, dear reader: are we knowing how to ask the best questions?
If we look at it from the perspective of French political scientist line data Christopher Clavé, the news is not good at all. He claims in his studies that we are becoming less intelligent as a society.
The reason for this dumbing down would be an “impoverishment of language”, resulting from a decrease in lexical knowledge (word repertoire) and in the linguistic subtleties that allow us to elaborate and formulate more complex thoughts.
One of the most noticeable effects is the gradual disappearance of verb tenses. This generates a thought rooted in the present, limited to the moment, incapable of projections in time and, consequently, of more subjective abstractions.
Another pessimistic view of our thinking future comes from another Frenchman, the neuroscientist Michel Desmurget . In his book The Digital Cretins Factory , he claims that the consumption of digital screens is already affecting the IQ of an entire generation. And he uses technical data to prove his thesis.
Desmurget's research presents very convincing results, indicating that fundamental foundations of our intelligence – such as language, focus, memory and culture – are negatively influenced by digital screens. Significant drops in academic performance are pointed out as evidence of this phenomenon.
Desmurget also makes the counterpoint, stating that screens can be beneficial as long as the content consumed is more educational and less recreationally impoverished.
Finally, we cannot leave out of the discussion the accelerated global process of ideological polarization, which places us in an increasingly self-defensive behavior, which generates dialogues only with groups of people who think like us.
As a result, this phenomenon is definitely killing debate, one of the great instruments for critical deepening and generating knowledge.
The end of rhetoric presupposes the end of questions with depth and complexity.
And by being less complex, how will Digital Intelligence feed on our questions? It is clear that its answers will be proportionally shallow and this limits its argumentative development.
Could it be that, by some irony of fate, ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence in general will suffer because of our lack of Natural Intelligence?
I'm sure not.