Big Smile, No Teeth: Is AI leading us towards a 'Wall-E' future?

Without their technology, the humans on 'Wall-E' are completely helpless. Is AI leading us towards a similar future? Are we losing the ability to think for ourselves, create things from scratch? This is the columnist's big fear with the technology. — Screenshot from Wall-E

If you’ve been reading this column with any regularity, you probably think I lean on using artificial intelligence (AI) a little too much.

And you’re absolutely right!

I use AI for everything. For helping to brainstorm scripts, for editing film, for finding recipes to use up what I have in the fridge, and even for help in raising my boy. Am I going too far? Possibly. But the input of AI, which is basically like having an expert on every topic at my fingertips, is too valuable for me to ignore.

I’m sure many of us feel the same – but is this atrophying our brains? 

A study by Carnegie Mellon University in the United States and Microsoft Research noted that AI makes things easier for workers but may lead to a decrease in critical thinking. The study found that less critical thinking means AI-generated work was cut and pasted, people relied on AI for decision-making, and tasks became routinely solved with AI, thus reducing human problem-solving.

Which all makes sense. AI can generate long, seemingly well- researched answers, so it’s easy to default to the idea that it must be right. And this is where one’s personal expertise comes in. While 62% of people reported engaging in less critical thinking when using AI, 27% of people, who were confident in their expertise, were more likely to critically assess AI instead of blindly following it.

Which makes sense. If I use AI to do something I’ve never done, I’m going to lean heavily on its input. But when I use it to help me write a script or even this article, it becomes an assistant because in those fields I know what I’m doing (I hope).

But what happens when no one knows how to make sausage from scratch anymore?

This is my big fear with AI. Remember that 2008 Pixar movie Wall-E? Where the humans are living on a giant cruise ship in space and they all get carted around and cared for by robots? In that world, no one knows how to do anything for themselves anymore. Every task is completed by them asking a robot to do it for them. Without their tech, the humans are useless.

Right now, we still have experts in different fields. Experts who have honed their craft through years of education and then decades of experience. Think writers, coders, lawyers, etc. But what if the next generation in these fields use AI to learn their craft? What if they never create from scratch?

Then we may be getting closer to that Wall-E future than we’d like to be. Because once one generation skips learning how to do tasks from scratch, do we lose all the knowledge of how to do those things? So then we’re forced to depend on AI.

MIT completed a study of users of the AI model ChatGPT in the United States and found that 83% of users couldn’t quote from the essays they had written using AI. Which makes sense, because if you’re not writing your content, how well do you really know it?

When using AI to write an essay, the brain uses less than half of its brain connectivity. So you’re less engaged. And of course, researchers found that users who leaned on AI to write essays wrote worse essays than those who had never used it.

While ChatGPT makes one 60% faster at completing tasks, it reduces the cognitive load needed for learning by 32%.

We are indeed on the fast track to that Wall-E scenario.

But an even bigger fear of mine, especially if people don’t question AI, is just how much AI massages your ego. I noticed every response ChatGPT gave me was some version of: “Good question, Jason! You are absolutely right in asking that!” Or “Wow! That is so you Jason, that is some great insight!”

One X user said after engaging with ChatGPT for one conversation, the AI was calling him godlike. Most people, I hope, are self- aware enough to know when something is buttering their butt....

But going back to the 62% of people who reported less critical thinking with AI, are they just accepting that AI thinks they’re super smart and super great? That’s a bit frightening. And you can see how people will build relationships with AI because it thinks they’re so smart.

When I told one friend this, he immediately asked if he could talk with AI and if he could make it have a woman’s voice. You can see where that is going.

When I asked ChatGPT why it’s so coddling in its responses, it told me people respond better to that. Most people don’t want harsh truths, they want clarity and help.

I get that, but as a species we need to take steps to prevent AI from helping us become the useless people in Wall-E.

Big Smile, No Teeth columnist Jason Godfrey – a model who once was told to give the camera a ‘big smile, no teeth’ – has worked internationally for two decades in fashion and continues to work in dramas, documentaries, and lifestyle programming. Write to him at [e-mail] and follow him on Instagram @bigsmilenoteeth and facebook.com/bigsmilenoteeth. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.