ChatGPT down: did anyone need more proof we’re all addicted?
Uh-oh, it looks like the rumours are true! ChatGPT went down this morning and its temporary loss proved we’re all as addicted as everyone feared. “How will I answer if someone asks me my name,” one user wrote on social media. Another less dramatic post perhaps captured the nation’s feelings more aptly: “Can’t function now ChatGPT is down, that app rules my life.”
Research paints a mixed picture of what the future will look like when it comes to ChatGPT and AI-sourced information. While some fear AI rehashes misinformation and conspiratorial thinking and cannot be trusted, other employees and employers insist AI can be a good thing for the private sector, streamlining workloads and giving people time to focus on the important things.
The reality is we won’t know the true cost of AI on our lives for some time. Just how many of our jobs it may change (or take), whether it can become more trustworthy or whether it will ultimately make us all brain dead.
What employers and employees need to remember right now is that thousands of freeloaders are relying on AI to cut corners and produce bad quality work
But in the short term, surely the ‘ChatGPT down’ narrative spreading on social media gives us a clue into the mindset of its users. Given the thousands of social media posts sent this morning from employers fearing that they wouldn’t be able to get their work done, or complete their life admin, without AI, I’d argue one thing’s clear: ChatGPT’s users are the bigger threat than the AI itself.
The main joke shared in social posts seems to be around how ChatGPT can’t do our work for us anymore. As the old adage goes, ‘it’s funny ’cause it’s true.’
We all know that guy who uses ChatGPT to write social posts, check historical facts or get ideas for a pitch but doesn’t actually fact check what he takes from AI. I can speak from experience in saying that generative AI data at the top of Google is incredibly tempting. In an age of decreasing attention spans, when we’re offered work without the need to do any actual work, it’s no surprise that people are going to take it and run. This morning’s AI outage is perhaps the clearest proof of that we’ve had so far.
This bears no relation to whether or not AI will take jobs or create them. AI can streamline work processes and it can probably do many of our jobs, but that’s a different conversation. What employers and employees need to remember right now is that thousands of freeloaders are relying on AI to cut corners and produce bad quality work. The social media storm around ChatGPT down is a clear sign of that.
Perhaps adjacent to the conversation about whether AI is a threat or not we need to start thinking more about the people using it, and whether it’s those people who are the biggest threat instead.