It’s not ChatGPT – It’s the Great Dunning-Kruger Curse!

The following is a summary of the previous posts on AI vs. Human, or AI & Human debate (depending on how you look at it), sparked by a chat I had with my mom about how incompetent people, who are very loud and insistent, usually win arguments over competent ones, who know that discretion is the better part of valor.

Either way, the advent of AI, pioneered by ChatGPT, has revealed there’s an even greater divide among humans than previously thought.

Perhaps it’s the Great Dunning-Kruger Curse. And even though ChatGPT didn’t invent it, it sure did highlight it.

Those who know are burdened with the knowing of not knowing it all, dancing at the verge of Imposter Syndrome, most often tipping over the edge. And those who don’t know are firmly confident about the few details they do know, utterly oblivious of the existence of the greater picture.

Once again, we are caught in the same old loop: a vast majority of people don’t really know that they don’t know, no matter how posh writing or fancy vocabulary they may use.

So maybe the time has come to stop blaming ChatGPT for the way we speak or write. The real issue is much deeper: misunderstanding language, politeness, and intelligence, which is something that stems back to the very roots of history, long before November 30, 2022.

Then again, the real question may be who gets to sound smart – the loud ones who know the least, or the quiet ones second-guessing themselves endlessly? Because telling someone they sound like ChatGPT is less insulting than the original intention behind it. People who question themselves most often know the most, and AI just mirrors that discomfort.

Let’s face it – sometimes, being right just feels wrong. And in most cases, that’s because a vast majority of people like to walk around pointing fingers for whatever reason, just for the sake of it. And since nobody likes to have fingers pointed at them, we just end up feeling perpetually bad about it. But guess what? It’s not us. It never really has been.

If this is a feeling you recently started having – welcome to the struggles of the well-educated / language nerds, where if you sound smart, you probably didn’t say it / write it / think of it.

The more, the merrier. And if plenty enough – can we just stop interpreting style as illiteracy, and perhaps interpret the lack of it as a cause for concern?

Let me tie this back to the em dash. Like I said, the em dash is more than punctuation. It’s a feeling. And if we cannot recognize a feeling, then perhaps the issue is more far-reaching. Perhaps then it is a sign of dead, soulless words. Because – what are words if one can’t assign meaning to them? Then again, perhaps it’s us who have taught AI not to “feel,” just like we did with many other things.

Here’s a wild thought. Maybe we should revert to the education system that started this whole mess in the first place. If you think I’m wrong, just ask yourself this – how many people today know what ChatGPT is, but how many who Emily Dickinson is?

Here’s an even wilder one. If your answer to the previous question was, “Why should I know who Emily Dickinson was?”, then maybe ask yourself: “Why do I feel so strongly about things I haven’t truly explored?”

One thing I have to admit, though – ChatGPT is a much better teacher than me. Be that as it may, it doesn’t really teach – it indoctrinates. And that’s the worst kind of teaching there is. That’s the kind of teaching that dubs em dashes “ChatGPT hyphens,” and words like “delve” or “meticulous” “AI preferences.”

Which is probably why there’s a host of articles like “We asked ChatGPT to solve simple tasks that everybody can solve” all over the internet – just another prime example of incompetent people not knowing how a certain technology or a tool works but feeling confident enough to point fingers, claiming “I’m smarter than that!” Well, guess what? Usain Bolt is also faster than Magnus Carlsen. That does not make him a better chess player, though.

It probably comes down to our innate obsession to prove we’re smarter than others and pinpoint “AI tells” to unamsk imposters. But guess what? Everyone’s an imposter today, even though none exist.

This brings me back to the Croatian Conundrum – to be literate or to be polite? Leaving the language world behind has taken off a lot of pressure to find a definite answer to this dilemma. Today, I don’t really care (that much) if you’re literate, illiterate, or perhaps worship a different orthography. I put myself first.

Which reminds me – a few days ago I found a comment on LinkedIn suggesting we should all stop using em dashes because otherwise our audience will interpret our content as low-quality and AI-generated. What a dreadful thought! That’s like telling your child, “Sweetie, tone down your voice because others won’t like you!” Which, you’ll probably agree, is (hopefully) not something we would ever say to our kids. So why do we tell ourselves the same thing?

What’s even worse, this came from a person who has the word “leader” in their headline. Is this how we lead now – by conformity? “Let’s conquer the world – by being just like everyone else!”

I certainly hope not.

Funnily enough, despite the overall access to the insurmountable knowledge ChatGPT and other LLMs have to offer, they still didn’t make us smarter. They just made us more paranoid.

Which is why the real issue isn’t language, or style, or AI – it’s perception, and power, and well… prowess. Or the lack of it.

Do you ever question your choices because you’re afraid you’ll come across as an AI bot?

Share your thoughts or this post to further deepen the discussion. 🫂