When threatened, the standard response from people who are used to being in control is to declare that the sky is falling. They claim that the world we had trusted is under threat.
We see these reactions during times of significant change. It's a typical response from those who've become comfortable, fat & happy with the status quo.
The shiniest new toy on the technology shelf is an artificial intelligence platform called ChatGPT. Even in its embryonic form, ChatGPT is equally exhilarating and frightening. Its potential to empower the pace of learning of language is thrilling, and its potential to supercharge bad actors with sinister motivations could be devastating.
It's so disruptive that even Google has declared ChatGPT a "code red" challenge to its business model.
The sense of exhilaration derives from a realization that you're conversing with an intelligence reaching back to the dawn of civilizations. It truly is incredible.
Given The Skills Studio's belief that the skills of Writing and Persuasion are super-power skills, we've concluded that ChatGPT can be an essential means for students to learn to be highly competent persuaders.
ChatGPT will change the relative value of human skills, and therefore what students should know and be able to do. Now that anyone can easily generate a five-paragraph essay that hews to standards, student perspective and voice — not often emphasized in schools — will matter more. And in a world where written words are cheap, verbal communication — again, often not emphasized in schools — will become a more salient signal of competence.
How students achieve competency as a persuader is not important, only that they learn they can be competent. So if ChatGPT is the difference between low and high competence, then go with ChatGPT.
When I say "go with ChatGPT," I mean learn to leverage the tool. Become an expert at the questions you devise to prompt ChatGPT. Use it to empower your Agency⌘ and become a compelling persuader.
You could form the view that you'll give attribution to the tool. To be transparent about how you use it and, in effect, why it's of value to you.
Over time you'll learn you can write your script and that you have the words inside you. Words that you're proud to convey to an audience. Words that persuade them to listen closely.
P.S. this Post is entirely my original work and was not infiltrated by ChatGPT.
⌘Agency (Stoic-Roman) conveys an awareness of exercising your full human capability bounded by your ethical and moral compass.
About the author: Greg Twemlow is the Founder of The Skills Studio
© Copyright Greg Twemlow 2023