We’re seeing a lot of students, teachers, and scientists produce more, and worse, outputs because of improper AI use. It’s possible to use it better: Have it imitate a critic. Learning and creativity come from getting criticism and experiencing friction.
We found that when knowledge workers intentionally use AI to challenge their ideas – to generate friction – they can significantly improve their performance. Previous research on human-AI collaboration for loan evaluations had similar results.
A study I was not involved with found that creative writers produce better copy when they use AI as a sounding board rather than to ghostwrite.
Yeah. Agree in theory. I’m a bit sus on the adversarial AI approach in practice, because most LLMs seem to produce a lot of sycophancy, and I think that’s a far too easy trap to fall in to.
I do think there are some practical uses, such as reducing availability bias by asking it “is there anything I’ve forgotten to consider in this thing I wrote?” AFTER you’ve done the thinking and writing. But I think the temptation to use it for generative purposes is pretty huge, and likely to suck a lot of people in.