AI will divide world into ‘thinks and think-nots’ – scientist

The use of Artificial intelligence (AI) for writing both at work and in school will result in the majority of people losing the skill in several short decades, Paul Graham, a computer scientist and author, has warned.

This will create a problem because writing means thinking, Graham, a veteran investor and cofounder of Y Combinator, a startup accelerator and venture capital firm, believes.     

“The reason so many people have trouble writing is that it’s fundamentally difficult. To write well, you have to think clearly, and thinking clearly is hard,” he said in an essay posted on his website last week.

However, the development of technology has allowed people to outsource writing to AI. There’s no longer a need to actually learn how to write, or hire someone to do it for you, or even plagiarize, the English-American scientist wrote.

“I’m usually reluctant to make predictions about technology, but I feel fairly confident about this one: in a couple decades there won’t be many people who can write,” Graham said.

It’s common for skills to disappear as technologies replace them; after all, “there aren’t many blacksmiths left, and it doesn’t seem to be a problem,” he admitted. But people being unable to write is “bad,” he insisted.

“A world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots,” Graham believes.

It won’t be an unprecedented situation, he observed, referring to preindustrial times, when “most people’s jobs made them strong.”

“Now if you want to be strong, you work out. So there are still strong people, but only those who choose to be,” Graham said. In his view, it will be the same with writing. “There will still be smart people, but only those who choose to be.”

Some 86% of students use AI in their studies, according to a recent survey by the Digital Education Council.  While 28% of them resort to technologies to paraphrase documents, 24% use AI to create first drafts, the study has found.