Artificial intelligence has changed quite a bit since the end of 2022, when ChatGPT was launched. Today, the technology probably speeds up one thing here and another there for you, whether in personal life or at work.
Using the technology may seem harmless. But there's "a toll you'll pay later." That's what Cristiano Nabuco, psychologist and rector of Artmed School of Psychology (APSY), said in an interview with Olhar Digital.
For a psychologist, IA is a formidable technology, but can be disastrous
The psychologist's warning has nothing to do with financial issues. It's about cognitive issues. About the way you think when you do things.
Check below the interview with Nabuco (the conversation was edited for readability):
How has AI changed our way of doing things since 2022?
Basically, we have a quite representative change regarding how we relate to technology.
Back then, before 2022, we had platforms, websites where we entered, apps that aimed to make us find what we were looking for, desired.
But behind this programming there was an attempt to make us stay longer. In other words: lights, flashes, likes. And this technology, every time you left and came back, would show you more of your previous searches.
This made us already navigate in a world that, in one way or another, had become more customized.
But AI took a step or two further; it gained another scale in the sense that it interacts with you as if it were a person. This is what we call anthropomorphization.
AI began as a search engine, then became a tutor, coach and psychologist in people's daily routines – Image: Jirsak/Shutterstock
We know it's a machine on the other side, but we start to react as if it were an individual or a professional.
What we noticed is that, for example, Google was initially abandoned because I no longer wanted just information; I wanted more digested information that could dialogue with what I desired.
It's as if, at first, AI offered the role of a search engine, but evolved into a tutor, in which you not only search for information, but you ask it: "How do I do it?" or "Where should I go next?"
So, it was no longer just a search engine or a tutor; it became a coach. From coach, it evolved into a psychologist.
From a psychologist, it evolved into something even more significant, in which it started to bring several nuances of an affective relationship, almost romantic.
There are several reports about people who are emotionally involved in a way that they cannot do anything without first asking the AI.
What we used to have back then as something that already concerned us, today is extremely more significant and impactful.
Is AI making us lazy or "stupid"? Are we losing cognitive and intellectual friction?
What happens with our brain is that it keeps responding as long as we present some demand. Some literature will say that the brain is a great problem-solving organ.
So, let's go back: in the time when there were no calculators, how did you learn math? You had to do it on paper, you developed.
Today, what happens? Today you can use the machine, but you know how it works. If you don't have a calculator machine, you do it there—even on the sand of the beach you can do a calculation.
What is happening today is that the level of layers that this artificial intelligence brings to us transcends everything we have seen before.
For example: I don't just have the issues related to basic operations, but today I have a personal portal that tells me everything.
It calculates, for example, the water flow from the water tank to know if my hydraulic engineering project is correct, can discuss the merit of a better trip.
Advancement of AI made possible an unprecedented "intellectual use" of machines in human history – Image: SvetaZi/Shutterstock
In other words, this expanded as if it were that individual painting a picture and taking a step back to better see the work.
So today, when you take a step back and see all this aspect, you realize that AI has greatly surpassed that life which technology brought us up to 2022.
Currently, when you have to write a theme, when you have to do a project, you don't do it anymore.
"Well, Cristiano, but see: I already learned to do a calculation, I already learned to make a PowerPoint presentation." Yes, we have already learned, so we are perhaps a generation with one foot in analog life and the other in digital life.
I would propose another analysis: we have today a generation that, in fact, has already grown up in this digital world, which had one foot before 2022 and now has the other foot after 2022.
This changes a lot, because these new generations won't have the opportunity to practice many of these skills that will be important.
No problem, suddenly, I take a scientific text, which is a denser reading, that will make me focus on it for a long time, and put it into an AI and say: "Look, take a look at this for me if there's anything that relates to my research or not."
This made it much easier, but fundamentally, I know how to read and decode, I know how to interpret a scientific text.
AI speeds up understanding of scientific articles, but you need to know how to 'decode them' on your own – Image: SvetaZi/Shutterstock
The question I ask is: would other areas or other people have this perception, or are they already skipping learning basic math and getting a calculator? That's the big point.
So, are people becoming less capable? We don't have scientific elements to talk about, but many smaller studies already point to the fact that we are losing important skills and that, when not practiced, they end up no longer being something so important and representative.
This obviously has a toll or a cost you'll have to pay later on.
We, in fact, have everything more ready, everything more facilitated today, and this, obviously, will create problems.
One thing is being presented with AI when you already master many of the skills. The other is when you don't even get to learn and you outsource it to AI.
This is devastating because it will form adults who have no minimal capacity in various domains of their existence.
What would be an unhealthy use and what are the possible impacts?
Healthy use would be using AI as a support.
For example, I have to write a text. I draft the text, write it in Word, put my ideas in, and then pass it to AI to correct some errors, some ideas that may have been poorly developed, because when you write a lot, you get trapped in your own interpretation.
It's very interesting that sometimes AI points out things that a reviser would do for me. This immediately, in a matter of seconds. So, it greatly shortened the distances.
The big question is: is AI bad? I think inherently, we can't say whether it's good or bad. What we can say is that it will depend on how you use it.
It would be somewhat similar to you consuming chocolate. Chocolate is a delight. But as you start eating it all the time, you begin to create a pretty bad diet for yourself.
AI is a tool that needs (or would need), when presented to the population, to put people into what we'll call digital literacy: how I will use it, in what moments, what bad things it might bring, and what it might not.
What we actually see are these companies running after losses. No one imagined that AI could occupy such a significant emotional space in people's lives as it does today. So, we don't know what the long-term effects are.
AI tends not to cause friction when you want to explore ideas – Image: Jack_the_sparow/Shutterstock
AI, insofar as it doesn't create friction (which is disagreeing with you, which is bringing a distinct opinion), creates a layer that makes it difficult for the user to see reality as it is.
We shouldn't stop using a tool that, in my opinion, is one of the things that has most impacted humanity.
I've never seen a tool with such power and capacity to assist as I have seen in AI.
Now, if you present this technology to people who already have some type of psychological problem, some mental illness, some issue (such as social phobia, for example), it can be very bad because it stifles human development.
It is very important that we understand our lives as a constant exercise in improvisation. What is this?
Suddenly you send me some questions here and I have to stop and think, I have to figure out how to respond.
I could take these questions, for example, and input them into the AI and say something like: "Hey, answer for me," right? It would have a ready-made answer. Perhaps you wouldn't even realize it went through the AI.
But what do I do? I know that AI can help me answer these questions, but I want to think, I want to extract from my own experience.
So, what do I say about the art of improvisation? They are exactly the circumstances that challenge us, that take us out of psychological comfort, that are the situations that refine us and make us grow, become better, more competent, more capable.
You can use AI, but with restrictions, with reservations. The impression I have is that we, our generation today, what we are experiencing, are, in fact, the great test drive of these big companies.
This, in the end, I think is unfair, because maybe I am older and know how to protect myself. And in this world of people who are dependent, anxious, with problems, with difficulty in orientation, with lack of supervision and support, this technology can be disastrous.
Pedro Spadoni is a journalist graduated from the Methodist University of Piracicaba. He has written for websites, magazines, and newspapers.
