At Issue with Mark Welp

Should AI Write a Eulogy?

Clip: Season 4 Episode 5 | 2m 3sVideo has Closed Captions

Should AI write a eulogy? One professor says some human work should stay human.

A discussion about technology and human connection turns to a striking ethical question: should someone use ChatGPT to write a eulogy? Rob Prescott argues that some moments depend on relationship, emotion and knowing what people need to hear, making them work AI should not try to replace.

Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback

At Issue with Mark Welp

Should AI Write a Eulogy?

Clip: Season 4 Episode 5 | 2m 3sVideo has Closed Captions

A discussion about technology and human connection turns to a striking ethical question: should someone use ChatGPT to write a eulogy? Rob Prescott argues that some moments depend on relationship, emotion and knowing what people need to hear, making them work AI should not try to replace.

Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback

• What about human connection, you know?

We already started texting each other more now than we talk on the phone.

With AI, you're not dealing with a human face-to-face.

Any worries about maybe people becoming more insulated as the technology grows?

• I'm not so sure that AI is gonna have any more effect on that than phones already have, the extent to which young people are spending so much time on screens and not talking to each other.

The advent of AirPods so that students walking across a quad are lost in their phones and aren't greeting each other, that it's cut down on the time that people are together.

• [Mark] So that horse is already out of the barn?

• I think so, but there are new things that as people can get more attached to their screens, you will get more deeply attached.

In terms of the humanity of it, my concern is people relying so much on ChatGPT that they don't rely on their hearts.

I saw a presentation on the ethics of AI and this professor posed the question, "Is it okay to use ChatGPT to write a eulogy?"

You know, if you think about it, you were asked to write a eulogy for someone because of your relationship, because the family and friends believe that you're important to that person and they wanna hear from you.

Does AI go to engines and look at a hundred million sources that talk about why you love that person or what people in that room need to hear so that they can grieve and appreciate that person and celebrate that life?

There are things AI can do and things AI should not do, not even try to do that come to being a human being, not just an information gatherer.

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