TLDR: Higher education costs too much, free lesson
I’d like to share some thoughts from a post I wrote for school this week.
Higher education costs a fortune. It has taken me 5 years, 2 kids, 2000 + miles, and much much more to pursue the MSIS that I am working on. I am tremendously blessed to have found a way to work the system and to have had access to resources….and more importantly the right people at the right time.
Anyway…for what it’s worth - here’s what’s going on in graduate school.
FORUM POST:
ChatGPT has its uses....AND serious limitations
Jessica Tomapat Oct 3, 2024 4:58 PM • 643 Words
For this week's assignment, I want to share how I use ChatGPT in both my personal and professional life, especially highlighting the pros and cons based on my experiences. While ChatGPT is a powerful tool for increasing productivity and enhancing communication, particularly for neurodivergent individuals like myself, it also has its limitations—especially when it comes to creative thinking and, as I recently learned, validating resources.
Pros:
Neurodivergent Communication: As someone on the autism spectrum, I’ve found ChatGPT to be an excellent tool for supporting communication. It helps me craft clearer emails, re-write difficult conversations, and fine-tune my tone for different audiences. This aligns with research by Karami (2023), which suggests that language models like ChatGPT can improve communication for neurodivergent individuals by providing structure and reducing social anxiety.
Productivity and Automating Mundane Tasks: One of the areas where ChatGPT shines is in automating the boring stuff. For example, when my email inbox gets out of control, I can write scripts to categorize and flag messages based on certain criteria. This automation saves me hours of manual sorting. According to Brown et al. (2020), language models can enhance productivity by processing large amounts of data and handling routine tasks efficiently.
Strengthening an Argument and Understanding Counterpoints: ChatGPT has also been helpful when I need to build a strong argument or understand a counterpoint. It can organize information logically, helping me structure my thoughts and refine my position. I often "argue" with it to improve its responses, and this interaction forces me to think critically. Wurm (2020) touches on how attention mechanisms in language models help them break down complex information effectively.
Cons:
While ChatGPT is incredibly useful for many tasks, it does have some significant shortcomings:
Not Great for Creative Thought Processes: One of the most noticeable limitations is that ChatGPT struggles with creativity. It can't come up with unique ideas or nuanced analogies the way humans can. For example, when I try to brainstorm, its suggestions are often generic or lack depth. Karami (2023) also notes that while prompt engineering can guide the model, it still falls short of true creative thinking.
Lack of Nuanced Analysis: Similarly, ChatGPT fails when it comes to more subjective tasks. For instance, during financial analysis, it can’t accurately identify operating costs versus non-operating costs without my guidance. While it can process data, it doesn't see the intricate patterns that human analysts can. I find myself double-checking everything it provides.
Poor Validation of Resources: Finally, and most frustratingly, ChatGPT struggles with validating academic resources. For this assignment, I asked it to provide me with scholarly references, only to realize that some of the sources it generated were either inaccurate or didn’t exist. This is a significant limitation when working on academic or research-based projects. I ended up manually verifying the sources, which highlights the need for users to be cautious when relying on ChatGPT for credible information.
Conclusion: While ChatGPT is a valuable tool for improving productivity, supporting neurodivergent communication, and assisting with structuring information, its limitations around creativity, nuanced analysis, and resource validation cannot be ignored. It’s important to see ChatGPT as a tool to enhance, not replace, human thinking—especially when it comes to more complex, subjective tasks. My experience underscores the importance of verifying everything it produces, especially if you're using it for academic or professional purposes.
References
Brown, T. B., Mann, B., Ryder, N., Subbiah, M., Kaplan, J., Dhariwal, P., Neelakantan, A., Shyam, P., Sastry, G., Askell, A., Agarwal, S., Herbert-Voss, A., Krueger, G., Henighan, T., Child, R., Ramesh, A., Ziegler, D. M., Wu, J., Winter, C., Hesse, C., … Amodei, D. (2020). Language Models are Few-Shot Learners. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 33, 1877-1901. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2005.14165
Karami, A. (2023). Prompt Engineering and ChatGPT: A Case Study on AI Interactions. SFU Research Commons. https://summit.sfu.ca/item/38178
Wurm, C. (2020). Attention is All You Need. Retrieved from https://user.phil.hhu.de/~cwurm/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/7181-attention-is-all-you-need.pdf
