This morning, I needed to make two vet appointments for my cats. I’m an American in Switzerland, so that means I need to make a phone call in German. No problem. I’ve lived here for almost 16 years and I have a B2 German certificate.
A B2 means—or should mean—that “I can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible. I can take an active part in discussion in familiar contexts, accounting for and sustaining my views.”
With that definition, picking up the phone and saying, “Ich möchte Kontrolltermine für meine Katzen vereinbaren,” (I’d like to make check-up appointments for my cats) should have been easy, so why did I panic and double-check with Deepl before calling?
Because I’ve gotten lazy with my German.
to keep reading, click here: Microsoft Says AI Kills Critical Thinking—Here’s What That Means for You
AI can do a lot of my work tasks very well now. When you look at the progression it’s made in the last 3 years, I shudder to think where it will be 3 years from now. I’m not sure I will be better at high level critical thinking skills by that time. What kind of job will be available to my daughter when she grows up?
The increase of options for AI to be integrated in has always been fascinating to me. I studied computer science in school because I have a love for technology but as AI has been moving up in the world it is starting to become concerning. When I was a student in elementary, middle, high school, I went to the library for school essays or projects. I would check out books and cite them straight from there, now kids have access not only to the internet but also autonomous thinking. I am not saying advancements in technology are bad, I genuinely this is the future and that it is important to follow, but I think the fear of taking away thinking is very real. Being in HR some positions require a specific knowledge to work for our company and if they got there specifically because they used AI, I worry about our residents safety.
I find this blog post so interesting because AI and websites like ChatGPT have taken over the world in the past few years. I constantly catch myself thinking about the years before AI existed and how many of us relied solely on our own critical thinking and problem-solving skills to come to a solution, but now it seems like we are catching ourselves using AI for possible solutions. Also, now when you type something into the google search bar an AI overview shows up first, we no longer need to scroll to numerous websites to find what we are looking for. The way AI works is it searches the web for solutions to the question that’s typed in and basically provides a summary for it. AI is still capable of making mistakes. I don’t think using AI is a bad thing because I, myself, use it to get ideas for fun outdoor activities for children or ways to better my resume, for example. However, I don’t think we should solely rely on AI to do all our work for us. Being a student in school, we hear professors talk about how we shouldn’t be using AI to write our papers, which I completely agree with. If we have AI do all the work for us, then are we truly learning anything? What good does it do for us if we received an A in a class or a perfect 4.0 GPA, but can’t perform the basic skills needed to survive in the workplace? In the end, I think that AI can and should be used to assist us in certain tasks, but it shouldn’t be doing our entire workload. AI should be more of a guiding and helpful tool, instead of a problem solver. How will AI affect workplaces in years to come? Will people be truly qualified for certain jobs anymore or will they use AI to get what they need?