Is AI taking away our discomfort?
‘This is fantastic!’ I thought. The questions were decent, I only had to do some minor tweaking, but soon I had my assessment written, with very minimal brain power from me.
There’s already been a lot of discourse around AI, whether it’s going to take our jobs, the environmental damage and how it is going to impact the creative arts industry.
I didn’t feel I had anything else of value to add to this discussion as many people have already covered these topics well.
So, I wanted to offer a different take and that’s on AI and our comfort levels.
Now I don’t mean physical comfort, AI isn’t going to be whipping you up a sofa with soft cushions (though give it time!), I’m talking about our mental comfort, our resilience and ability to challenge ourselves.
As I often do, I’m going to call myself out and provide an example…
I detest writing assessment questions. Absolutely hate it. Quite often I will not include final assessments in my eLearning’s, unless specifically requested by the client. As an instructional designer, it’s my weak point.
So, when ChatGPT came on my radar, and I learned more about how other ID’s were using it for their work, I thought ‘hmmm how can I use this to my advantage?’ I tapped in the key points from a course I had written, along with the learning outcomes and asked ChatGPT to create me a range of multiple choice and multiple response questions.
And that it did.
‘This is fantastic!’ I thought. The questions were decent, I only had to do some minor tweaking, but soon I had my assessment written, with very minimal brain power from me.
Whilst I wasn’t using ChatGPT for any other part of my work, as soon as I needed an assessment question I was straight there.
Was this wrong? No not really. I was still proofreading the outcome, and I had to have done a lot of the ID leg work, to have an input for the questions to be based on.
But what I soon realised was that jumping to ChatGPT to write my questions was becoming a bit of a reflex, and in doing so I was evading challenging myself.
For me it felt like the first time I was cutting corners in my job. When I began using ChatGPT it felt like I was handing over parts of my job to this weird invisible coworker, simply because I didn’t want to do them myself.
As I explained before, writing questions is my pet hate. It frustrates me and I always leave it until last when writing my courses. Through using ChatGPT I was eliminating this discomfort, that’s good right? Well yes as a short-term fix, but in the long run I’m actually avoiding strengthening my skills or improving my instructional design. Because if I’m always taking the easy way out, I’m never going to learn right?
This is where I feel we as individuals need to mindful about our use of AI. It is this slippery slope that leads to an overdependence and causes us to constantly find the easy way out, instead of facing our challenges.
Merge this with impatience and it’s a bit of recipe for disaster. We crave the quick and easy fix.
But you may be thinking ‘Emma, technology has been offering convenience for a long time, how is this any different?’ And you’re right. I remember before the days of Google (yes I’m that old), we had Encyclopaedia CD’s which you could use to look up facts. But as soon as search engines took off, we binned the encyclopaedias and grabbed our keyboards instead.
Now I’m not going to sit here and say I would head to a library and grab a book to look up something. Of course I’m going to open Google to find my answer. I am the most impatient person ever, along with a big ol know it all, not in the ‘I want to be better than you’ way, in the ‘I must know everything ever kind of way’. The instant answers soothe my dopamine seeking brain.
These developments in convenience can be seen across technology. Desktop computers became laptops, which became mobile phones and tablets. Nowadays we can take our pocket computers everywhere with us and do pretty much anything on them. No need to stand in line at a bank, there’s an app for that. Need groceries but it’s raining out and you don’t want to go to the shop? No problem! Just order them from your phone. Uber eats means you can get food delivered to your door the same day.
Technology has been dampening our discomfort for years now and will likely continue to do so as it morphs and evolves further.
So why is ChatGPT or any other AI tool any different?
For me it felt like the first time I was cutting corners in my job. I’ve trained hard, gathered experience and always felt proud that I have the ability to turn content into something palatable. When I began using ChatGPT it felt like I was handing over parts of my job to this weird invisible coworker, simply because I didn’t want to do them myself.
It felt slightly disrespectful to myself, that after all these years of hard work, I’d then belittle what I do down to it being as easy as asking a computer.
Now I don’t want this to be all negative. Because actually AI automating certain tasks can be a fantastic way to boost productivity and allow you to focus your efforts on things that do support your creativity and fulfilment. For example, I spend way too much time on admin at the moment, so an AI powered time management tool would be ideal for me, taking the pain of project plans away and allowing me to focus my efforts on my learning design.
You could again argue that I’m choosing to take an unenjoyable task away from myself, which yes true. But in this instance, the goal isn’t so that I simply don’t have to do something I don’t enjoy, it’s to improve my efficiency, freeing me up more time and therefore positively impacting my work. Time I could then use to write my own bloody assessment questions.
So as with any technology, it’s about defining where these things can add value to your specific circumstances and being open to calling yourself out when you turn to AI not because you can’t do something, but because you don’t want to. Then reflecting on whether this is a healthy habit to form.
For me I quickly realised this wasn’t a healthy habit and yes, I do still use ChatGPT to write assessment questions, but I will often give it a go myself first and ask AI to refine them or align them more to the learning outcomes where necessary. Like a little proofreader buddy.
What I have found is that quite often I never needed ChatGPT to do the work for me, I just needed a five-minute break. After staring at my computer screen for 3 hours, without having taken a break for a drink, or a walk, my brain was naturally craving the easy option. It was tired and burnt out.
What I really needed was to get up, move away from the desk, have a drink of water (no not coffee Emma) and breathe. Then come back to the challenging task at a later point, with a rested brain and fresh eyes.
So, no AI isn’t the devil, it can be used responsibly and in ways that can truly benefit us. But remember, it is still important to allow ourselves to feel discomfort. Otherwise, we will never learn, develop and grow as people and professionals.
