An email to my high-school english teacher
Hi Mr. ____,
I'm not sure what to make of this email haha. At the least, it's a greeting from one of your old students at southern cayuga :)
To be honest, I'm not sure if I'd reach out like this if it weren't for the circumstances of today (whatever that means lol; more on this later). I feel ashamed while acknowledging this, but I won't let it shy me away from reaching out to you.
Furthermore, if i could confess some more, I never thought I'd find myself pondering the literary arts and its past teachers of mine, today.
Mr. ____, I am what most folks would probably call a "tech bro". After high school, I ran off to San Francisco to gorge myself in AI, data science, and software development. A decade has gone by and I've done just fine as a "tech bro", but I find myself deeply troubled these days.
Deeply troubled by technology and its influence on us, as a society and people.
Of course, I'm not the only one with these concerns; far from it. However, I've sadly become quite the pessimist. Social media, perhaps the modern internet too, has devoured our attention spans; along with how we sift and digest information. Our minds simply don't navigate this world as slowly and thoughtfully as they once did. While this perspective is depressing, I've always remained optimistic that we'd eventually build a healthier internet and online environment.
However, with the recent emergence of large language models (a fairly new type of artificial intelligence), ChatGPT, and other AI developments; I feel like I've started to see the writing on the wall for the literary arts (no pun intended lol).
What is the value of a word anymore if it can be projectile vomited? Who wants to taste or read somebody's thoughtless "writing"? This predicament has notoriously shaken up education, but what of everything else outside of academia?
If AI is being used to write books, articles, research, and more; who will read or want to engage with them? Will we grow more and more skeptical of new publications? What becomes of us if reading and writing becomes less human? I fail to see how a society wouldn't regress if respect for literature dies.
Thus, the pessimist in me mourns, as the value of a "word" plunges with AI.
Would love to hear your thoughts and more, Mr. ____. Hope you are happy and healthy.
Your student,
Taro