What are the bad sides to chat gpt ?

[AceKitten]

Is it to do with too much water ? Personal information being taken ?
or anything else ?

My MIL has outsourced almost all her thinking to it. Sink blocked? ChatGPT. Oven broken? ChatGPT. How to use up three onions and a stick of celery? ChatGPT. Should I go on a cruise with me sisters if xyz ages? ChatGPT. Should I watch the latest Downton movie? ChatGPT.

In and of themselves none of these are bad uses, but for a woman who never had critical thinking skills and who thinks government and businesses are looking out for her best interests, at her age it’s deeply concerning. Mostly I think she uses it because FIL is fed up of listening to her endless worries and anxieties after all these years, and is beyond fed up of cleaning up after her naiveties cause them financial and practical problems - so now she turns to ChatGPT for soothing and to “talk through” her anxieties. If she’s like this mid-70s, what is she going to be like when she’s 80+?

Good for her! It sounds like she is using ai to make her life easier. It sounds like people find her annoying so being able to talk through her anxieties using an anonymous and non judgemental app is a win for her. The fact she doesn’t have critical thinking skills and is naive and too trusting is no more a reason she shouldn’t use ai than she shouldn’t read the Daily Mail or go on the internet.

The environment. The fact that it often gets stuff wrong. But mostly the environment and the potential effects on people’s employment.

This has happened a lot! I seem to remember an employee at one of the tech giants feeding info into chat gpt about a huge new product that was being released that was to remain entirely confidential until announcement. Someone somewhere else asked chat gpt what features the new XYZ product would have and it regurgitated the info back to them which they then plastered everywhere.

Well, you’re right from one perspective, but does the world really need another resource like the Daily Mail? I’m actually not anti-AI in theory: I think humans will, on the whole, benefit from AI in the fields of healthcare and armaments/weaponry. My real frustration I guess is with MIL’s lack of critical thinking skills, and ChatGPT just makes life worse for everyone who has to deal with her. This is yet another tool/ resource (she gets her “news” off Instagram ffs) that will end up making the “dumb” dumber. A reflection of the polarization that we’re seeing everywhere in our culture.

(BTW I’m actually very fond of my MIL, she’s an excellent grandma to my DC and has on the whole been a good MIL to me too. She’s just a very different person to me and both DH and I struggle with her. Tbh we struggle with my DM too, for different reasons…)