Generative AI: From Helper to Thought Partner?
The first time I heard of an generative AI tool was in my exchange semester in Budapest. A fellow student introduced Chat GPT to me and it felt almost like magic. My fellow student asked ChatGPT to summarize a research article I had been struggling with, and within seconds I had a clear overview. It would have taken me at least an hour. I used it for a few weeks and introduced it to some of my other friends who were amazed aswell. Since then, I have experimented with different tools: text-to-text models like ChatGPT for writing support and easy explanations of difficult exercises, and text-to-image models like DALL·E or MidJourney for creating visuals in presentations.
The most remarkable aspects are the speed and inspiration these tools offer. When preparing for group projects for example, I used ChatGPT to brainstorm as an example to give me an outline for a digital strategie for a company. The ideas weren’t perfect, but they helped my group to get started much faster. In addition to that, image generators helped us visualize concepts that would have been difficult to explain with words alone. In this sense, GenAI acts like an assistant that can take on many tasks and implement them super quickly.
At the same time, the limitations are quite obvious. The quality of the results varies often, the information is sometimes outdated or simply incorrect. I have also found that relying too heavily on AI can affect my own critical thinking, as I am sometimes tempted to accept the first answer rather than question it.
In the future, I would like to see improvements in two areas. First, better integration of reliable sources (imagine if ChatGPT could always generate citations in APA style correctly) and more transparency about how answers are generated and where the information comes from.
How about you? Do you use GenAI more as a brainstorming tool, or do you rely on it for polished results? And should universities encourage students to use these tools or restrict them to protect independent thinking?
Good take. I also see GenAI more as a jump-start than a finished product – great for speed and ideas, less for polished results. The real challenge is keeping critical thinking sharp while using it. Universities should teach how to work with it, not ban it. For me it’s a tool like Excel: learn to use it the right way and productivity goes up fast.
I think AI has been affecting critical thinking skills a lot. I keep finding students in group work who answer every question with ‘I will ask ChatGPT’. I think there are huge upsides, as you mention, getting started with idea generation for projects. But the degree of students resorting to ChatGPT as the only form of (critical) thinking is a worrying development, both for the people who have to work with these students, as well as for themselves.
Hey Dennis I completely agree with what you wrote, my first blog covered some of your parts as well, about how we loose our critical thinking, the more we depend on AI, eventhough we all had a “wow” moment the first time we used it. For me its mainly a tool that I can brainstorm with or automate some really repetitive tasks, since I think that we should try to use aspects of AI that can benefit us most, while also approch this entire topic with a little bit of caution. So yeah, really impressive tech but should also be taken with a grain of salt!
Interesting thinking. I fully agree that AI makes it easier for students to make assignments and essays. But the cost of this, is that students are now less incentivsed to think for themselves and critically. Coming up with your own ideas and be creative is something that we are actually taking for granted, but human creativity might decrease or lose if we keep using AI to generate ideas instead brainstorming ourselves. Before reading this article, I was not conscious about this issue but this made me think that for myself, it might be also better to use AI less often for idea generation and instead, be creative and use my own abilities more.
Very insightful topic, Dennis, and something I’ve been thinking about myself a lot as well. The shift feels somewhat counterintuitive, as we went from doing essays from our own thinking without the help of ChatGPT to it now being the first tool we reach for. I agree and personally think that a healthy balance can be found, as overreliance on the tool could risk dulling our own critical thinking. However, not using it today could mean falling behind in efficiency and productivity.