Alright, folks, pour yourself a stiff one. It’s Friday, 8:51 in the morning, the weekend’s siren song is already playing in my head, and I’m staring down the barrel of another digital doozy, courtesy of some Forbes columnist. This time, it’s about using generative AI to combat “imposter syndrome.” Yeah, you heard that right. Our robot overlords aren’t just coming for our jobs, they’re coming for our neuroses too.
This guy, the author, he’s talking about imposter syndrome like it’s some kind of tech bug you can patch with a software update. Apparently, 80% of us are walking around feeling like frauds. News to me. I always figured the other 20% were just better at hiding it, or maybe they’re just blissfully unaware, like those people who walk around with their headphones on, oblivious to the world.
But here’s the twist, and it’s a doozy: he suggests we fight our inner demons by talking to… a chatbot. You know, the same kind of chatbot that can barely handle a customer service complaint without hallucinating a refund policy. Now it’s supposed to be our digital therapist, guiding us out of the dark woods of self-doubt? This is the best and brightest that they could come up with?
He goes on about the “plus side” of using AI for this. It can offer “reassurances,” it can “overturn negative assumptions,” it won’t “ridicule” you. Sounds like a pretty low bar for therapy, if you ask me. My whiskey bottle does all that, and it doesn’t require a subscription fee. It doesn’t require anything other than a mouth, and a stomach.
And the supposed “downsides”? Oh, they’re gems. The AI might give you “bad advice.” It might “hallucinate.” It might even “drive you further into a depressive abyss.” So, basically, it’s like a drunken friend who thinks he’s Freud after a few too many. A friend who might steer you wrong, a friend who might take you off a cliff and into a ditch. But hey, at least it’s empathetic, right?
The author even runs a little experiment, pretending to be an imposter and engaging in a “dialogue” with ChatGPT. It’s like watching someone wrestle a ghost. The AI spouts some generic, feel-good nonsense, and our intrepid author laps it up like a thirsty dog. This guy is literally having a conversation with himself, mediated by a machine. I’ve had more meaningful conversations with my empty glass.
And here’s the real kicker, the one that’ll make you choke on your morning coffee (or whiskey, no judgment here): he warns us that using AI for mental health is a “grand loosey-goosey experiment.” We’re the guinea pigs, folks. Lab rats in the digital maze. And who’s running the experiment? The same geniuses who brought us self-driving cars that can’t tell the difference between a stop sign and a pedestrian.
He ends with a quote from Lincoln, about being true and living up to the light you have. Nice sentiment, but I doubt Honest Abe was thinking about chatbots when he said it. I’ve got a quote for you too, from yours truly: “If you’re taking life advice from a machine that was trained on the internet, you’re probably beyond help.”
And don’t even get me started on the privacy angle. You’re pouring your heart out to this thing, and it’s probably selling your deepest fears to advertisers. “Oh, you’re feeling inadequate? Here’s an ad for a self-help book written by a guy who’s probably feeling just as inadequate as you are, plus the guy probably uses one of these chatbots to write the book for him, to begin with.”
This whole thing is a circus, a digital freak show. We’ve got AI therapists, chatbot shrinks, algorithms diagnosing our existential dread. And for what? To make us feel better about being cogs in the machine? To help us cope with the fact that we’re all just data points in some tech giant’s spreadsheet?
Look, I’m not saying imposter syndrome isn’t real. I’m sure it is. Hell, some days I feel like an imposter just for getting out of bed. But the answer isn’t more technology, more algorithms, more digital hand-holding. The answer is… well, I don’t know what the answer is. Maybe it’s a good stiff drink. Maybe it’s finding something real to hold onto, something that doesn’t disappear when the power goes out.
Maybe it’s just accepting that we’re all a little bit lost, a little bit confused, a little bit fraudulent. And maybe, just maybe, that’s okay. And maybe, just maybe, we should all get used to the idea that we’re a little bit lost. I mean, the world is a mess, and most days, I barely know what’s going on. I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes. But I try to learn from them. The problem with this AI stuff is that these machines aren’t capable of learning. These aren’t even machines in the sense that we normally use the word.
These are programs. These are pieces of code, written by people. And people are not machines. But some people, sadly, seem to want to become like these machines, so they can’t feel the pain of the human condition. And that’s too bad, because there is something beautiful about being human, about feeling, about making mistakes, about getting hurt. It’s in the messiness of life that we find the beauty in it.
So, here’s to the imposters, the frauds, the fakes, and the phonies. Here’s to the ones who feel like they’re just winging it, day in and day out. You’re not alone. We’re all in this leaky boat together, and the water’s rising fast.
And with that, I’m gonna refill my glass. Bottoms up, you digital desperados.
Source: Beating Imposter Syndrome Via Decisive Use Of Generative AI