Have you ever felt a pang of guilt using ChatGPT, or even downplayed how often you rely on it, like when drafting a tricky email to a colleague or asking for personal advice? I know I have. But after diving into the future of AI and its impact on our behaviour, I’m here to say: it’s time to drop the guilt. Instead of resisting, let’s embrace ChatGPT as a creative collaborator, a tool for upskilling, and a strategic asset. In the spirit of embracing AI without guilt, I used ChatGPT as a creative collaborator to brainstorm and refine this content.
WHERE WE ARE RIGHT NOW: COMPLACENCY, INSECURITY & PRODUCTIVITY
“It’s making me feel lazier and more productive.”
Dazed AI poll respondent, 2025
THE DAZED POLL
Overall AI chatbots like Chat GPT enhance productivity overall but also encourages laziness
We asked 50 Dazed respondents "Which of the following statements best reflects how AI chatbots like ChatGPT are impacting you right now?"
Dazed Studio recently hosted a discussion with seven members of Gen Z from around the globe, asking “Do We Really Want to Connect Anymore?”. The question is urgent. Amid a growing youth loneliness epidemic and mental health crisis, technology is reshaping how we communicate, create and express ourselves. While AI tools are becoming deeply embedded in creative workflows, their rise presents an unexpected challenge; a crisis of creative confidence.
“I feel like AI is fostering a culture of insecurity… I do know how to formulate sentences, I’ve been at school for 15 years, I can write coherently, but I’m starting to lack trust in my own ability.”
Evea, Gen Z, Dazed Studio Echo Chamber Live Panel Discussion
WHERE WE ARE RIGHT NOW: THE RISE OF THE CULTURAL CRITIC - AND THE DECLINE OF CRITICAL THINKING
Interestingly we’re witnessing the rise of the trend forecaster, the cultural critic, the curator of content, yet simultaneously there is a decline in critical thinking.Speaking to Dazed’s editor Thom Waite he remarks that, “Increased AI use has been directly linked to the erosion of critical thinking skills. As AI assistants and automation take even more intellectual labour off our hands in the future, I'm not too optimistic about how this pattern might continue. Something I'm especially concerned about is the agreeable nature of AI, which aims to make us feel good (as paying users) much more than it tries to challenge us, or push us to engage in self-criticism.”
OF RELEVANCE…
The Rise of the TikTok Oracle*
The term “TikTok Oracle” refers to individuals on TikTok who provide guidance, predictions, or insights, often blending traditional practices like tarot reading with modern content creation. This phenomenon highlights a shift in how audiences seek and consume advisory content, favoring short, engaging videos over conventional mediums.
THE AI DILEMMA; Efficiency vs. Authenticity
“There is a level of convenience that takes us away from what really matters… We are being pushed into isolation by the system, through the use of AI and AI companions.”
Laiyonelth, Gen Z, Dazed Studio Echo Chamber Live Panel Discussion
Within this era of hyper productivity there’s undoubtedly a loss of certain skills but a gaining of new skills.
“We need to learn to enjoy errands and chores and tasks like that because that’s a lot of our lives… to use those as a wonderful meditative break where you are technically doing something productive… you are around people and thinking your own thoughts during the day.”
August Lamm, Artist, Writer, and Activist, Dazed and Discoursed Podcast
SO WHAT’S NEXT?
HOMOGENOUS CONTENT & AI EXPERIMENTATION
“Some [young people] will carve out their unique voice 'in partnership' with AI, which might be harder to do, since the bigger, mainstream models tend to churn out a lot of homogenous content, regardless of the artist's prompts. On the other hand, some creatives are developing their personal voice by misusing AI or experimenting with their own models and datasets. For me, this is where the really interesting work is taking place.” - Thom Waite, Dazed Editor
SOME CRITICAL FOOD FOR THOUGHT: KNOW CHAT GPT’S LIMITATIONS
Question the sources - The Sun and Wikipedia are often cited - how varied and fact checked are these original sources?
It glitches and often makes mistakes
Constantly test it and challenge it
Don’t solely and blindly rely on it
Chat GPT-4o knowledge cut-off date stands at October 2023
SOME OTHER AI TOOLS WORTH TRYING
DALL·E 3 - OpenAI’s latest image generation model, within ChatGPT; it uses a neural network to create images from text descriptions.
Wysa - an everyday, 24/7 mental health support chatbot, trained in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques; Wysa works with mental health services, such as in the NHS, and has found that in a study of 1,205 people, the therapeutic alliance between human and Wysa AI professional scored comparably or better than traditional in-person CBT sessions.
Suno - for music generation, Suno creates songs from inputted text prompts; one can create music instantly through describing your desired genre and mood, complete with vocals and instrumentation - see the example above!
Claude3 Opus - the highest intelligence of the Claude 3 family, a “privacy-first” AI model, which can converse in non-English languages such as Spanish, Japanese and French. It claims to outperform its competitors (GPT-4 included) in several areas: in undergraduate level expert knowledge (MMLU), graduate level expert reasoning (GPQA, and basic mathematics (GSM8K).
THE FINAL WORD:
COULD AI ACTUALLY MAKE US SMARTER OVERALL?
A 2023 MIT Management study found that generative AI (ChatGPT) made a group of 444 college-educated professionals 37% more productive, and that the time they spent on specific tasks decreased by 80%. Across the first of two tasks, “participants spent 25% of their time brainstorming, 50% writing a draft, and 25% editing. With ChatGPT, draft writing decreased by more than 50% and the time editing more than doubled”. By taking time away from what some might consider the laborious task of writing up their ideas, more time can be spent developing one’s original ideas and effectively communicating it via editing to their audience.
Socrates opposed the written word, fearing it would weaken memory. While he wasn’t entirely wrong, the spread of books has been instrumental in humanity’s evolution and progress.
“For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practise their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them.” – Socrates in Plato’s “Phaedrus”
MIGHT BE OF INTEREST
AI+
Words by Izzy Farmiloe, Bryony Stone, and Mina Polo.
Published 7 March 2025.
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