...personality. Title was too long.

There has been a lot of talk about AI recently. One facet of it is the question whether AI makes us stupid, that we will just ask it instead of thinking or learning ourselves.

The answer to this question is complex with all the different forms of AI, but with conversation-type AI, such as ChatGPT, it is not obvious at first, but when you think about it, it's pretty straightforward.

Disclaimers: 1. I have not used ChatGPT or similar services myself, but I have seen others do so, including for programming Arduino-type microcontrollers, so this article is based on what I expect it would do. 2. I have written many .BAT files, but since I switched to Linux, I have barely touched its counterpart, shell script. Hence, I don't know if the example I give in this article is possible, although I have no reason to believe it wouldn't be, at least most of it.

I have never liked to do things without knowing what I'm doing. I want at least a basic knowledge before beginning something. That's one reason all the discussion about ChatGPT made it seem quite unappetizing to me - "you don't have to learn to program, the AI will do it for you!" No, if I want to program, I want to know what I'm doing. I don't know any modern programming languages, but I would rather take the time to learn one, or even not program at all, than run code that an AI wrote, that I have no idea what it does.

But recently I was thinking through this and wondered: Why couldn't I learn from the AI, instead of letting it do the job for me?

I'll use an example of a shell script that I need. Whether or not you call that programming, it's at least similar, and the principle of learning or not is the same. I might actually try this on the GPT AI I've seen on Nostr.

I could either ask the AI: "Please write a shell script that can run on a computer with Debian and FFMPEG installed, that takes files in the folder "to convert" on the desktop, converts them to MP3 with variable bit rate, quality 8, and puts the resulting files in the folder "converted" on the desktop, named after the original files, but with extension ".mp3", and then deletes the source files for which the conversion was successful."

Then paste that into a file, allow execution of it, not know anything I didn't know before, and hope that the AI didn't write something that deletes the operating system...

OR, I could ask the AI: "Please write a shell script that can run on a computer with Debian and FFMPEG installed, that takes files in the folder "to convert" on the desktop, converts them to MP3 with variable bit rate, quality 8, and puts the resulting files in the folder "converted" on the desktop, named after the original files, but with extension ".mp3", and then deletes the source files for which the conversion was successful. Also tell me what every line and its options and arguments do."

Then read the explanation the AI gives, understand a bunch of commands I didn't know before, probably be able to spot any mistakes the AI made, as I can think through the logic of the script, and THEN make a file of it and be fairly certain it does what I want.

To me, the choice is obvious. I love to have things explained clearly and learn them. I don't like searching the web to find articles that details the needed commands for something, but with no explanations, having to search time and time again to try to understand them - something I think many people trying to switch to Linux have experienced.

But I have the feeling that I'm in the minority. It seems like it's a personality trait whether people want to learn or just do. Some, like me, want to learn, at least the basics, first. Some want to throw themselves head-first and learn by doing. But most seem to not want to learn at all.

So my conclusion is that chat-type AI will make some people smarter, but replace learning for the majority, unless they make an active effort. And why would they, when they can rely on the AI to do everything for them? It will probably work 99% of the time, but when it doesn't, they'll be stranded. Or they can call us who learned. Perhaps a business opportunity for the future.