A peek into an AI-driven future, this new year

I then delved into my personal history to see what I could do with ChatGPT. Many years ago, when I was at Oxford, the legal philosophy course for postgraduate students required us to write three essays on topics assigned by the law faculty. Students had approximately eight weeks to write the essays. The essays were expected to be thoughtful and well researched. One of the topics was ‘Is it compatible with self-respect to treat the law of one’s state as authoritative?’ I put the question to ChatGPT, and within seconds, I had a three-paragraph answer. It gave me the option to regenerate answers. I asked it three times, and each time I received a slightly different answer to my question, with different philosophical slants.

So you may ask me now: is the student essay dead? Will all future essays be written by a computer? Not quite. The answers that ChatGPT gave to my question in legal philosophy were a bit hackneyed. They said something sensible but if I were looking only for sensible writing in my student essays, I would not be in academia in the first place. I like essays that are not merely sensible but also imaginative, even creative, and which have a certain zest and panache. ChatGPT is not there yet.

However, ChatGPT is merely the first tentative foray into AI-driven human simulations. I know that AI enthusiasts imagine a future where AI can generate full length essays on any imaginable topic. It might struggle a bit in matching the best man-made essays in the humanities because language, tone and style matter more in the world of letters, law and philosophy. But AI enthusiasts contend, not without justification, that eventually AI will overcome its inhibitions with humour and emotions to the extent that we won’t be able to distinguish between a person and an artificial entity. There’s no point in predicting the future. AI will map our futures for us.

You, the next generation, have a major ethical headache. In a world where creativity is generated artificially, what happens to authenticity? The search for an authentic self is critical to one’s sense of fulfilment. I am going to assume without asking you that you are interested in building a personality that belongs to you, and is uniquely yours. The stronger the role of AI in your lives, the more AI will chip away at your personalities. If your work products are not really yours, how are you going to build your authentic selves?

Let’s assume you are alright with a world where AI is doing most of the work. There are bigger ethical headaches for you. So far our identities are built on the twin ideas of praise and blame. We have distinct identities because we are praised for causing good outcomes and blamed for causing bad outcomes. If this sounds strange to you, just imagine how we will assess ourselves in a world where there is no individual responsibility. Many of the familiar features of our world, including the legal system, will no longer make sense. AI is going to take a pickaxe to traditional ideas of human responsibility. If human actions are in essence led by algorithms, we will need a rethink of how we allocate praise and blame for our actions. I am saying we, but it’s actually your generation that will be the first generation to address these problems. We are wading in deep, philosophical waters.

But don’t leave it to the philosophers. All of you need to think about issues of identity, praise and blame in the age of AI because AI, if it fulfils its promise, will leave nothing in human affairs unchanged.

The writer is Registrar, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru

‘My Dear Students’ is a fortnightly Sunday column on https://indianexpress.com