Humans ever more important in a world of AI, 16/07/2023

RTL Today - The Lisa Burke Show

This week on the Lisa Burke Show, experts on AI and ChatGPT foresee a world where critical thinking will be king.
AI, Chat GPT… the world of automation and replication of ‘easy’ tasks will continue to rise around us. This week my guests talk about the power of AI but also the continued and changing importance of our role as humans to negotiate with these tools.
Martin Jonsson, editorial lead for RTL Today and deputy head of digital products, has been tasked with leading RTL Luxembourg's AI workgroup.
Martin believes that AI will certainly take care of some current roles, and possibly even do them more efficiently (AI doesn’t sleep), but doesn’t believe we should worry about job losses.
“My basic stance is that if generative AI (in particular) is properly implemented, it will free up time for more investigative and qualitative journalism - but it's nowhere near a place where it can fully or, in many cases, even partially replace humans. It's a fantastic tool when placed in the right hands and given the right instruction, though.”
AI will continue to saturate the market with content, and so human reporting could become even more valuable. We like a human connection with our information and we need to feel we can trust the source. Although, it is also possible to replicate the human face and voice even!
Christoph Schommer has worked as Associate Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Computer Science at the Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Luxembourg for over 20 years.
He tells us how we think Chat GPT works, although no one (outside of the working team) really knows. These models are trained from pre-data sets and the internal processes follow some form of deep learning technique. They rely on prediction.Chat GPT doesn’t necessarily give the best answer, but the most probable, statistically.
Bob Reuter is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Luxembourg in the field of learning and teaching sciences. He studied cognitive science and used machine learning as a research tool to better understand how the human mind works. Bob’s research focusses on the strategic integration of ICT in education alongside the socio-cultural changes in learning caused by the digital revolution. Bob talks about our current education system, which still requires the reproduction of knowledge. ‘Memorising has been futile for about 10 years’. Dr Reuter thinks that AI and Chat GPT are just another tool, like Wikipedia, which can be used to aid research and education. And indeed all the guests talk about it being a great aid and equaliser for students all over the world. Bob believes we should be like children and play with the tool.
Frédéric Clavert, Assistant Professor in European contemporary history at the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg, oriented his research towards the use of digital tools and technology by historians, how these technologies are changing the way historians are working. He is currently studying how generative AIs such as ChatGPT or Stable Diffusion deal with collective memory and the past.
Frédéric reminds us that Chat GPT is generating primary sources which will is of interest to historians. We can analyse the negotiation a human enters into with the machine - there’s an art to formulating good prompts.
And everyone agrees the role of the human will be more important in becoming a life-long learner, who knows how to think critically and analyse what information or sources can be trusted.