Watch: Maltese IT Lecturer Urges People Not To Grow Overly Reliant On ChatGPT
IT lecturer Prof Matthew Montebello has sounded a warning against people becoming overly dependent on Chat GPT and similar LLM chatbots.
In a video published by the University of Malta, Prof Montebello urged people to use these chatbots as tools without outsourcing their thought processes to them.
“The use of generative AI has already become commonplace at work and practically every aspect of our lives, so it is very important to keep in mind where and how we use this technology,” he said.
“If we reach a point where we end up depending on it for every little thing, we risk losing our human capacity to use our brains critically to form original ideas and thoughts.”
Prof Montebello advised people to use chatbots to provide them with ideas, but not answers, and as de facto “assistants” to critique their work.
He also advised people to use multiple chatbots and to utilise their human capacities to build arguments and analyse information.
“As a society, we need to build new skills to analyse all of this information that is emerging from different systems,” he said. Therefore, generative AI should be a tool to help us and not to replace us.”