The beauty of dedicated forums such as Canoetripping is that you get a dedicated base of folks who have a wide range of experience that can generally be trusted. Most opinions are based in years of practice and real life experience, and even if one doesn't agree, there is usually respect for the opinion.
Not so on other social media platforms, such as Facebook, where the worst advice is often given in the comments, by people professing to have all kinds of qualifications and experience. Then there are the youtube videos, posted by people proclaiming to be experts, but camping a few meters from their off-camera vehicle.
Now, however, I fear there is a new kind of poser, the GPT chat kind, who enters a forum or social media platform with very little real knowledge, but uses AI to generate input and answers.
When I think of my own on-line learning experience in things like canoe tripping and canoe building, it came from many years of online participation and actual experiences.
I wonder if AI has the potential to speed up the learning process, or if it will just be used to build on-line personalities devoid of any real knowledge. I know when my students use AI (a growing problem), they seldom use it to gain knowledge. They just generate product. When you ask them specific questions about their product, they usually have no answers.
In short, is there a possibility a new type of forum participant might evolve? Will it be a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? Or is Skynet really here, and will it attempt to assimilate Canoetripping?
Not so on other social media platforms, such as Facebook, where the worst advice is often given in the comments, by people professing to have all kinds of qualifications and experience. Then there are the youtube videos, posted by people proclaiming to be experts, but camping a few meters from their off-camera vehicle.
Now, however, I fear there is a new kind of poser, the GPT chat kind, who enters a forum or social media platform with very little real knowledge, but uses AI to generate input and answers.
When I think of my own on-line learning experience in things like canoe tripping and canoe building, it came from many years of online participation and actual experiences.
I wonder if AI has the potential to speed up the learning process, or if it will just be used to build on-line personalities devoid of any real knowledge. I know when my students use AI (a growing problem), they seldom use it to gain knowledge. They just generate product. When you ask them specific questions about their product, they usually have no answers.
In short, is there a possibility a new type of forum participant might evolve? Will it be a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? Or is Skynet really here, and will it attempt to assimilate Canoetripping?
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