ChatGPT Graduates with the Class of 2023

It’s graduation season. This year’s students will be the first graduates entering a workforce where AI is no longer the dream of science fiction. 2023’s graduating class will be starting jobs where conversational agents and generative AIs are copilots, pair programming partners, and copy editors.

AI Rising

ChatGPT debuted November 2022, but completed its first semester of college amidst controversy and condemnation from academia. Spring semester students used ChatGPT to inspire them with new essay ideas, proofread their papers, and; yes, write entire essays and theses. Rivers of ink and pixels littered screens lamenting the death of term papers and originality. Some college professors and high school humanities teachers found themselves flunking students because they could tell ChatGPT wrote their papers. A few innovative professors applauded their students’ use of the tool to clean up their writing and craft new ways of expressing their ideas.

Today’s AI has become either a favorite boogeyman, or the key to a bright future; however, the reality is more nuanced. We should be worried about real harm abusers can do using powerful large language models. Widespread misinformation and distortion of facts can be easily created using generative AI. The greater impact to society may lie in how we integrate AIs into our economies.

AI Integration

The Class of 2023 could be the people who help figure this out. Every major productivity app 2023 graduates use will ship with assistive or generative technologies this year. Microsoft has been testing its Copilot AI in Office 365 since March 2023. Copilot AI is designed to assist document writers with style and structure improvements in Microsoft Word. It operates as a macro and function assistant for Excel, offering artistic guidance for PowerPoint presentations.

Microsoft believes Copilot will help Office 365 users focus on the 20% of work that matters instead of the 80% of tedium we deal with every day.

And Google isn’t standing idly by. At this year’s Google I/O, the company is integrating its own LLM technology into Google Docs and Sheets providing users of those online tools an assistive alternative. Google is aggressively pursuing opportunities to integrate its LLM technology in unexpected places. Google and Wendy’s are teaming up to bring conversation AIs to drive-thru windows at Wendy’s restaurants. It’s ‘Fresh AI’ has been trained in Wendy’s fan lingo to take Frosty and JBC (Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger) orders for hungry consumers.

A first read of this news can be alarmist. AI is potentially removing copyeditors and technical writers from the professional workplace. And, the same technologies are potentially eliminating low cost jobs in retail and fast food.

AI’s Future

The opportunity for this Gen Z graduating class is to begin uncovering the new problems AI can’t solve and start the industries poised to fix them. Every technological innovation has served as job reducer and job creator. As a society, we’re still struggling with striking work-life balance. Every productivity boosting technology consistently resulted in us doing more work, not less. In America, today’s professionals crank out more deliverables working longer hours than ever before.

The opportunity for this Gen Z graduating class is to begin uncovering the new problems AI can’t solve and start the industries poised to fix them. Every technological innovation has served as job reducer and job creator. As a society, we’re still struggling with striking work-life balance. Every productivity boosting technology consistently resulted in us doing more work, not less. In America, today’s professionals crank out more deliverables working longer hours than ever before.

The Class of 2023 grew up during the digital age. Their relationship with digital technology is woven into their social fabric. This relationship with technology will prove vital to adapting AI technology in a responsible and conscientious manner. This cohort can be the key to a future where AI truly is an assistive technology benefiting the human experience.