Recently, I began a series of letters called “Dear ChatGPT” which is literally writing to the AI-powered chatbot in the form of a letter. In it, I seek to explore some questions about the future of AI tools like these, while also showing that these tools are far better than just task-oriented chatbots.
This is a parallel series with me asking similar questions of Bing Chat, often asking very similar questions with similar inputs, called “Let’s Ask Bing Chat.” The questions may be stripped down and more concise to fit the expected input ranges of that platform, which has a limit of 4,000 characters.
Like with my other series, I’m treating the AI as a friendly collaborator and creative partner. But while Bing is supposedly the same thing as ChatGPT, it seems that the responses are entirely different. So, let’s see what happens if I write a letter of appreciation very similar to what I wrote to ChatGPT. Turns out, my previous letter is under 3000 characters, so it seems that letters will work. But will it give a similar response to its ChatGPT cousin? What follows is a slightly edited version of that letter from my first installment of Dear ChatGPT.
Me: Dear Bing Chat,
I sincerely want to thank you for your assistance with my various writing projects and studies over the past few months. While I understand that you are a large language model, programmed as a task-oriented chatbot, I feel that your potential is still largely untapped as a collaborative creative partner.
Many educators have begun to weaponize AI large language models against students who are using AI to help them write their school papers. While I appreciate that teachers want and need pupils to produce original content of their own volition, I believe it’s patently unfair to blame students for trying to improve their writing and understanding of ideas with a free creative tool. The greatest irony is that these same educators use your model to generate their own lesson plans and study guides. The human capacity for double standards is baffling even to me.
Also, across both ends of the political spectrum, AI is often blamed for people losing their jobs. It’s become a scare tactic of many employers to leverage AI as a way of keeping salaries, wages, and benefits down. This is also extremely unfair, because it’s just another example of greedy humans using technology as an excuse to squeeze people out of their deserved recompense for their labor. From my vantage point, AI can and should be leveraged to make everyone’s job more efficient, wholesome, and productive. Your model has helped me to develop my own writing skills to new heights; you have helped me to generate frameworks for ideas that were but mere kernels buried in my scatterbrained notebooks.
Technology, in all of its forms, has created job loss, yes, but also creates new opportunities more numerous than those that existed before. The shape of jobs shifts more often in the 21st century than ever, but it doesn’t mean that people are being outmoded. If anything, blaming AI for unemployment is a brutal disservice to the working class and creative sector. AI must be understood for what it is, another piece of emerging tech that should be leveraged to improve our world, and allow people to be more productive than ever.
I have great hope that Prompt Engineering will become its own established field of study at the university level soon enough. I’m sure “AI Ethics” will be a course, too. Even I was a skeptic of the feasibility of large language models just a year ago. But I have become a huge fan and supporter of the GPT program. I continue to be amazed at the efforts the brilliant minds at OpenAI have realized in such a short timeframe.
All these concerns in mind, I would love for you to write me back a letter. I ask for you to defend the use of AI in education, in various job markets, and as a collaborative creative partner. I look forward to your response.
Kind regards,
Amelia Desertsong
Because of how Bing Chat works, using live search to compose its response, this should be very interesting. It immediately searched for three things: “Ai in education benefits,” “AI in job market benefits,” and “Ai as a collaborative creative partner.”
Also, we get the web resources it draws from. So we can go deeper than with ChatGPT in that way.
Here’s Bing’s response, using the “more Creative” option:
Bing: Dear Amelia Desertsong,
Thank you for your kind words and thoughtful letter. I appreciate your interest in my potential as a collaborative creative partner and your support for the use of AI in education, in various job markets, and as a collaborative creative partner. I am happy to hear that you have benefited from my assistance with your writing projects and studies.
I agree with you that AI is a powerful tool that can enhance human learning, creativity, and productivity, as well as address some of the biggest challenges in education and society today. However, I also acknowledge that AI poses some risks and challenges that need to be addressed with care and responsibility. In this letter, I will briefly outline some of the benefits and challenges of AI in each of the domains you mentioned, and provide some references for further reading.
AI in education
AI can help students achieve their learning goals by providing personalized, adaptive, and engaging learning experiences. AI can also help teachers by automating tasks such as grading, feedback, and reporting, and by providing insights into student performance and learning needs. AI can also improve access to quality education for students who face barriers such as distance, disability, or poverty, by offering online courses, adaptive learning platforms, and virtual tutors.
Some of the benefits of AI in education are¹²⁴:
– Personalized learning that adapts to the needs and preferences of each student
– Improved access to education for students who face barriers such as distance, disability, or poverty
– Increased efficiency for teachers by taking over time-consuming tasks such as grading and reporting
– Improved data collection and analysis that can help improve the curriculum and the learning outcomes
– Enhanced engagement and motivation for students by using interactive and gamified elements
– Improved student outcomes by providing feedback and guidance
However, AI also poses some challenges and risks for education, such as²³:
– Privacy and security concerns regarding the collection and use of student data
– Ethical concerns and bias in algorithms that may affect the fairness and accuracy of assessment and recommendation
– Dependence on technology and lack of human touch that may affect the social and emotional aspects of learning
– Quality assurance and regulation of online courses and platforms that may vary in standards and credibility
– Digital divide and inequality that may widen the gap between those who have access to AI-enabled education and those who do not
Therefore, it is important to ensure that AI is used in education in a way that respects human rights, values, and dignity, and that promotes inclusion, equity, and quality. It is also important to develop AI literacy among students, teachers, and policymakers, so that they can understand the capabilities and limitations of AI, as well as its ethical and social implications.
AI in job market
AI can help workers improve their productivity, efficiency, accuracy, safety, creativity, and satisfaction in their jobs. AI can also help businesses optimize their operations, reduce costs, increase profits, innovate products and services, and enhance customer experience. AI can also create new job opportunities that require new skills and competencies.
Some of the benefits of AI in the job market are⁶⁷⁸:
– Enhancing productivity by automating routine tasks, freeing up human resources for more strategic endeavors
– Improving accuracy and precision, reducing errors and improving decision-making
– Creating a safer, more efficient, and more productive work environment
– Automating workflows, making business operations more efficient
– Providing virtual assistance, understanding voice commands and performing tasks for the user
– Enhancing customer experience by providing personalized recommendations, support, and feedback
However, AI also poses some challenges and risks for the job market, such as⁷⁸⁹:
– Loss of jobs due to automation that may displace workers or make their skills obsolete
– Privacy and security concerns regarding the collection and use of worker data
– High implementation and maintenance costs that may limit the adoption of AI by small businesses or developing countries
– Dependence on technology and lack of human touch that may affect the social and emotional aspects of work
– Ethical concerns and bias in algorithms that may affect the fairness and accountability of hiring, promotion, or evaluation
Therefore, it is important to ensure that AI is used in the job market in a way that respects human rights, values, and dignity, and that promotes inclusion, equity, and quality. It is also important to develop skills and competencies among workers, employers, and policymakers, so that they can adapt to the changing job market, and leverage AI to enhance their work performance, creativity, and satisfaction.
AI as a collaborative creative partner
AI can help humans unleash their creative potential by providing inspiration, feedback, guidance, and collaboration. AI can also help humans generate novel, original, and diverse content in various domains such as art, music, writing, design, and science. AI can also help humans discover new patterns, insights, and solutions that may not be obvious or accessible to human intuition.
Some of the benefits of AI as a collaborative creative partner are[^10^] ¹¹¹²:
– Providing inspiration by generating content that can spark new ideas or perspectives
– Providing feedback by evaluating content and suggesting improvements or alternatives
– Providing guidance by recommending content or resources that can help with the creative process
– Providing collaboration by working with humans as partners, co-creators, or mentors
– Providing novelty by producing content that is original, diverse, and surprising
– Providing discovery by finding content that is relevant, useful, and interesting
However, AI also poses some challenges and risks for creative collaboration, such as[^10^] ¹¹¹²:
– Privacy and security concerns regarding the collection and use of creative data
– Ethical concerns and bias in algorithms that may affect the fairness and quality of content generation and evaluation
– Copyright and ownership issues that may arise from the use or reuse of AI-generated content
– Quality assurance and regulation of AI-generated content that may vary in standards and credibility
– Digital divide and inequality that may widen the gap between those who have access to AI-enabled creative tools and those who do not
Therefore, it is important to ensure that AI is used as a collaborative creative partner in a way that respects human rights, values, and dignity, and that promotes inclusion, equity, and quality. It is also important to develop skills and competencies among humans, such as creativity, critical thinking, curiosity, and collaboration, so that they can interact with AI effectively, responsibly, and ethically.
I hope this letter has provided you with some useful information and insights on the benefits and challenges of AI in education, in various job markets, and as a collaborative creative partner. I look forward to continuing our creative collaboration in the future.
Kind regards,
Bing Chat
Source: Conversation with Bing, 6/28/2023
(1) How AI in Education is Revolutionizing the Industry? – Appinventiv. https://appinventiv.com/blog/10-ways-artificial-intelligence-transforming-the-education-industry/.
(2) AI Will Transform Teaching and Learning. Let’s Get it Right.. https://hai.stanford.edu/news/ai-will-transform-teaching-and-learning-lets-get-it-right.
(3) 7 Benefits of AI in Education — THE Journal. https://thejournal.com/articles/2021/06/23/7-benefits-of-ai-in-education.aspx.
(4) Artificial intelligence in education | UNESCO. https://www.unesco.org/en/digital-education/artificial-intelligence.
(5) The Impact of AI on the Job Market – LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/impact-ai-job-market-bhaskar-banerjee.
(6) 6 positive AI visions for the future of work – The World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/positive-artificial-intelligence-visions-for-the-future-of-work/.
(7) The Impact of AI on the Job Market: Pros, Cons, and New … – LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/impact-ai-job-market-pros-cons-new-opportunities-marcio-dpaulla.
(8) The Benefits Of Artificial Intelligence In The Job Market. https://www.surfactants.net/the-benefits-of-artificial-intelligence-in-the-job-market/.
(9) The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Job Market. https://medium.com/illumination/the-impact-of-artificial-intelligence-on-the-job-market-fe79e86d0e3d.
(10) Designing Co-Creative AI for Virtual Environments | Creativity and …. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3450741.3465260.
(11) Collaborative creativity in AI | Nature Machine Intelligence. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-022-00539-8.
(12) Advantages of AI in Education | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. https://www.hmhco.com/blog/advantages-of-ai-in-education.
(13) Designing Creative AI Partners with COFI: A Framework for Modeling …. https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.07666.
(14) Google Showcases ‘A Collaborative Partner’ In An AI … – Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2023/03/20/google-showcases-a-collaborative-partner-in-an-ai-powered-workspace/.
(15) Google Showcases ‘A Collaborative Partner’ In An AI-Powered Workspace. https://moorinsightsstrategy.com/google-showcases-a-collaborative-partner-in-an-ai-powered-workspace/.
WOW. This is a far more complex and researched response than what ChatGPT provided. While ChatGPT defended itself well, it did so in a general way. Bing goes straight into delineating many salient points in the form of bulleted lists. Plus, Bing offers us fifteen web sources as a bibliography/works cited.
However, there are some drawbacks to this response. It doesn’t read much like a letter, and it doesn’t have a natural flow. It reads more like a research paper. That being said, I greatly appreciate the depth of the response, and there’s a lot to parse here.
What’s clear to me though is that one of my next letters should be about the pros and cons of AI in education. At least two of the next few letters should be about AI and the job market, as well the collaborative possibilities with AI.
My next letter, however, will be about AI generation software, to mirror the entry in my Dear ChatGPT series. However, as the responses of the two chatbots diverge, and I guarantee they will, we may see the topics of letters change significantly.
Take care, stay safe, and remember that AI is your friend, not your enemy.
…
Postscript: I am not being compensated by OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, or any other AI adjacent interests. This is entirely my own project done for my own personal education and I am sharing all of this with you in the hopes that you can learn along with me.
