Artificially intelligent: chatbots, grifters, and the new, new ignorance
Eyisha Zyer is a self-styled “AI Insider” — an influencer in the artificial intelligence space who has made a name for herself and built an audience of over 50,000 followers by sharing breathless Twitter threads rounding up AI tools, startups, products, and “hacks”; the majority of which are merely user interfaces built on top of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The influencer, who spruiks artificial intelligence courses and insights, will tell you that she has unlocked the power of AI and can help you to do the same. But until a few short months ago, Zyer’s professional experience was a world away from AI, machine learning, or anything related: she was a social media manager for a children’s clothing brand.
Her followers adore her for her ability to curate and share content on AI, especially those based on ChatGPT. They revere her knack for making complex AI concepts understandable and relatable. The enthusiasm is so infectious that some followers have even begun emulating her, generating their own threads on AI trends and (so-called) insights.
Some might call Zyer’s story a testament to the democratization of AI. Her journey from managing social media for a clothing brand to becoming an AI influencer demonstrates how AI is becoming increasingly accessible to a broader audience. But for others, it raises the question: who gets to be an ‘expert’ in this age of rapid technological advancement?
The skeptics argue that copying and pasting links about AI and sharing them on social media does not necessarily equate to expertise in the field. They believe that a profound understanding of AI requires a deep dive into the technology, which is lacking in Zyer’s online offerings. In their view, the superficial engagement with AI that Zyer promotes could mislead her audience about the complexities and challenges inherent in AI and machine learning.
AI itself is a complex beast. Ethically, socially, intellectually, technically, and scientifically, it is a minefield of potential problems, dangerous trends, and a problematic future defined by change and rapid transformation. In deeper AI discussions than will be found in Zyer’s Twitter threads, academics, philosophers, and engineers who have spent decades of their lives engaging with the concepts of artificial intelligence and what they mean for the future of our species are arguing about the odds of human extinction.
Zyer finds herself at the center of a new wave of digital intelligentsia flourishing in the AI “ecosystem.” Armed with buzzwords and a zest for uncovering the latest trends, these influencers present themselves as guides to the labyrinthine world of AI, curating what they deem to be the most significant advancements and presenting them to a ravenous audience of tech enthusiasts and laypeople alike.
For Zyer’s followers, her curated posts serve as a window into a world often perceived as intimidating and inaccessible. They trust her to filter through the noise and deliver valuable insights. However, in doing so, they risk accepting a diluted version of AI that presents the field as a collection of intriguing tools and gimmicks rather than a transformative technology with profound implications.
In many ways, Zyer embodies a broader trend of ‘surface-skimming expertise,’ an offshoot of our digital age where information is abundant, but in-depth knowledge is often sacrificed for breadth and speed. In a world where knowledge is just a Google search away, the ability to find and present information has been conflated with understanding it, causing a rise in what we call a ‘new ignorance.’
The concept of this ‘new ignorance’ hinges on the paradox of our modern digital age. With information at our fingertips, we have access to a breadth of knowledge that is historically unparalleled. At the same time, this wealth of data presents its unique challenges.
The vastness of the internet and the ubiquity of information-sharing platforms encourage quick, bite-sized consumption of information. Social media feeds, blog posts, and online articles often prioritize brevity and shareability over depth and nuance. This culture can foster a shallow engagement with knowledge, where we absorb a surface-level understanding of many things but rarely dive deep into any one topic.
We are witnessing a troubling shift in our cultural landscape. Our reliance on AI fosters a culture that rewards superficial understanding and the appearance of expertise over genuine comprehension. Critical thinking, once a cornerstone of knowledge acquisition, becomes devalued, replaced by an overreliance on AI-generated answers.
This “new ignorance” manifests as a rudimentary understanding of buzzwords and trendy applications. The new ignorance views AI as merely a tool for creating clever chatbots or automating tedious tasks, blind to the profound ethical, sociological, and philosophical implications accompanying its advancements. This level of understanding does not discern the crucial difference between correlation and causation in data science or the fundamental principles that underpin machine learning algorithms.
The new ignorance is an expanding and evolving pandemic. It’s not simply the AI influencers who are swept up in this contagion; it trickles down to the masses and reverberates through boardrooms, classrooms, and social media forums.
Picture a well-meaning educator who, beguiled by the prospects of AI-driven personalized learning, adopts a new platform without delving into the questions of data privacy, algorithmic bias, or the broader implications on social dynamics in a classroom; or a classroom itself increasingly filled with students who rely on AI tools to regurgitate the median of human knowledge and intelligence as half-baked, semi-academic essays, while their human button-pushers enjoy the luxury of not knowing what they don’t know and have eluded the opportunity to learn.
Let’s not forget the politicians, in their bid to appear forward-thinking and innovative, who often tout AI as the silver bullet for various societal problems without comprehending its limitations or the ethical dilemmas it will inevitably — and brutally — entail.
What fuels this pandemic of new ignorance? It’s the intoxication of speed, the seduction of viral content, the mirage of quick mastery, and the illusion of limitless progress. The algorithms further amplify This new ignorance by prioritizing engaging content over informative depth, creating an echo chamber of buzzwords and over-simplified information.
But the ramifications of this new ignorance stretch beyond wasted investments and unmet expectations. It masks the profound beauty, complexity, and challenges of AI. It renders us ill-equipped to engage in meaningful discourse about the ethical challenges of AI, the biases that can be unwittingly perpetuated by it, and the delicate balance of human and machine interaction. In the process, essential questions about AI’s influence on society, its potential for misuse, and the ethical boundaries that should guide its development are often glossed over. When discussion of AI is limited to ‘hacks’ and user-friendly tools, we risk creating a generation aware of AI but oblivious to its complexities and potential ramifications.
The antidote? A rekindling of a collective commitment to depth and a recalibration of our relationship with knowledge in the age of AI.
Educational institutions, industry leaders, and policymakers must foster environments where critical thinking and genuine understanding are valued over mere terminology. We must make room for the ethicists alongside the coders, the philosophers alongside the data scientists, and the skeptics alongside the innovators.
The need for thorough, rigorous understanding becomes increasingly paramount. Our ability to harness AI’s power while navigating its potential pitfalls will depend on our collective knowledge of this powerful technology — not just the parts that make good social media content. We have a shared, communal responsibility to grapple with this reality as we tread deeper into artificial intelligence, which may demand a more discerning perspective than the Eyisha Zyers of the world can provide.
