Transcription
Hey everybody, welcome back to High Level Listening. Today's lesson is for those of you who are ready to move beyond everyday small talk and start having more real, modern, and slightly deeper conversations in English, especially if you're in the B1 level and you really want to push through and achieve that B2.
Yeah, that's exactly what we're working on today. This is a B2 level conversation, which means you'll hear more nuanced opinions, more specific vocabulary, and maybe some ideas that are a bit more complex or abstract. But this will still be a natural conversation. And we think this is a great way to pick up new words and phrases about topical issues with subtitles and captions to help you, plus the chance to pause, rewind, and listen again so you don't get lost. We also have all of our B2 level conversation study guides that will help you stretch from small talk to deeper topics in our conversational English study guide in the link in the description below that has PDF transcripts, dictionaries, and so you can really feel confident in today's lesson.
Yes. So today's topic is something that everyone is talking about right now. It's AI, artificial intelligence. And we'll also cover AI generated content.
Yeah, I it's funny kind of over the past couple of years, I think there's been a lot of confusion in kind of the generic name AI. And there's definitely been a shift in the way that most people use the word in day-to-day language. It's starting to be more of an umbrella term or kind of a catch-all phrase for all sorts of words and technology that we've used in the past, even if those things aren't actually AI. words like CGI and computer animation, you know, kind of like the computer graphics. Some styles of cartoons, drawings, and styles are also being called AI, even if a real person manually or physically created them.
Yes, I know what you mean. It's taking over the phrase. When we looked at a photo that had been changed or manipulated, we used to say, "Oh, it's photoshopped." Or, "Someone photoshopped this." But nowadays, I think people say, "Oh, it's AI. Oh, that's just AI. It's fake." Uh, yeah. And another example is chat bots. If you need help from your bank, your phone company, and you need to talk to someone, you probably won't chat to a real person. You'll chat to AI or just say, "Oh, they've replaced the customer service team with AI. Oh, I talked to the AI and it didn't help me." So, it's replacing everything.
I know. It's kind of weird. So, um the the term AI just kind of has lots of different meanings now. Um even anything that's fake on the internet, fake news, disinformation, misinformation, people are in general, they're just calling it AI or my new favorite phrase from the past couple of years, AI slop. And uh you might have seen this as a comment, is this real or is this more AI slop?
Yeah, slop. low quality obviously AI slop videos, pictures. So yeah, there's obviously a lot of negativity around AI and we'll dive deeper into that topic and talk about AI generated content or the slop and uh yeah, we've structured today. So we'll start with sharing real experiences and then we'll talk about if we agree or disagree with opinions we've heard with a little debate and then share some deeper insights with articles that we've read. And by the end, hopefully you'll feel a bit more confident discussing this topic naturally using B2 level English.
Okay. So, we're going to start by sharing some of our own opinions. Uh we were talking about this with a couple of friends the other day and one of them made a really interesting point that kind of stuck with me. She said uh that it's getting harder to tell what's real anymore. It's getting harder to tell what's real anymore. And that really succinctly captured something I think a lot of people are starting to notice. Uh she explained a little bit more that when she scrolls online now everything feels slightly off, like it's been polished and optimized but not genuinely thought through or the details are a little off. It's not obviously bad, like maybe the very first look, but it doesn't really feel fully authentic either. She kind of went on to say that she'll read a post or watch a video that sounds and looks really convincing at first, but then it kind of falls apart the more you think about it or the more you look at it. The ideas are there. Again, the big picture is there. The structure is there, but there's no real depth behind it. And it's something kind of creepy, a little bit weird, maybe even awkward. And nothing really makes it memorable or worth coming back to. It's just there. It just exists. It feels generic, kind of repetitive and kind of hollow in a way, really empty, like it's been generated for the sole purpose to imitate rather than actually provide information or education. I think she kind of described it as a constant stream of content that looks good on the surface, but really lacks substance underneath.
Yes, there is a name I remember for that feeling when you watch something that's robotic or fake or digital and that strange feeling you get. It's called the uncanny valley.
Oh, that feeling when something looks real.
Okay.
Yeah. But you know it's not something's wrong. Something's missing. Like when they make a pinpoint it exactly. Okay. Uncanny uncanny valley.
Yeah. That feeling. But yeah, uh if we're talking about pictures and and images and videos especially, they're not perfect, but they're already convincing enough to trick a lot of people, including my mom and the older generation. My mom sends me videos with lots of laughing emojis. And the videos she sent me are blatantly AI. There's artifacts in the videos. artifacts are those like glitches where somebody's got six fingers on one hand and she sent me one of all these cats in someone's bed and there's a cat with two heads and there's a cat that's extremely large compared to the other ones and it's sent it to me and she's she's petting it the wrong way as well. So
yeah, right. So, there's all these giveaways or these little artifacts or glitches, but to the untrained eye or just at a glance, uh, it's real enough. And when people are scrolling on their phones, they just look for a few seconds anyway. And yeah, it's only when you look closer that you start to see the weird glitches. And it that's fine when it's just an innocent, silly video. But I think with older people, it's it's only going to get worse. It worries me about my mom because if that fools her and it's uh quite rudimentary now as AI gets more and more sophisticated, more lifelike and more believable, she will have no idea if what she's seeing is real or not. And even I'm starting to struggle with some things as well. Uh even with the news, I remember there was some news in Mexico recently of an airport on fire. That was fake. It wasn't complete video, but
enough people believed it for it to circulate through news channels and caused panic, and it's only going to get worse as AI evolves and gets even better. So, yeah, I like to think of myself as someone who can spot AI pretty easily, but even for me, I'm starting to doubt myself and it's starting to get harder. So, yeah, I agree. It's getting harder to tell what's real anymore.
So our second point that we kind of wanted to make was that um well people are overreacting. AI is just a tool. So it just really depends on how it's being used.
Yeah. Uh so again we were talking about this with our friend and he had a slightly different perspective. It's worth mentioning that this comes up quite a lot in these discussions. He basically argued that people are overreacting and it's just a tool. It is something to assist you and help you. If people are using it to produce lowquality content, then it's not really the fault of the technology, but it's the person using it. And he said that it can also be quite helpful in certain contexts. Like you can use AI to summarize information, to improve clarity if you're writing something, or help you organize your thoughts if you're trying to plan something, which I think is a fair point. Uh I do have a friend who works as a software developer and he uses AI as well but he embraces it as a tool. Uh it helps him code faster but he still has to supervise it because the AI still makes mistakes. So he's kind of got the best of both worlds. He's got the speed of the AI and he's got his own expertise. And importantly it hasn't made him obsolete. He hasn't lost his job because AI has taken it from him. His knowledge is still critical.
I kind of see that, but at the same time, that's really mostly talking about the ones that are language models, right? Like chat GPT and Claude, right? These are these are language models. They're helping you interpret data, summarize things, and help you speak more succinctly. Okay. But it does feel like it oversimplifies what's actually happening because the issue isn't just about the occasional user using chatbt for fun or to summarize an email or a small business owner creating a post or a social media post or something that benefits their small business. What's really changed is the sheer volume and the speed at which this content is now being produced. Nobody's factchecking. Nobody's looking back to make sure that things are correct. And a lot of it isn't really created to help the small business owner or help somebody in their job. It's just meant to capture your attention. It's it's clickbait, right? So like for instance uh especially like in our job if you search something like B2 level English on the YouTube search and you get search results that are pretty much 90 to 95% AI generated content with faceless videos AI generated pictures and then on top of that AI generated voiceovers with zero real people involved and is that what people really want? I mean, maybe a couple of those videos were popular at the beginning, but do some people even realize that these people aren't real at all. A lot of them are realistic photos. Um, even the voice over sounds okay? And I bet if you're a non-native speaker, you would hear it and think, "Oh, maybe that's a real person," but they're not. I probably wouldn't notice if I wasn't currently aware of how much these videos are taking over the internet.
Yeah, I agree. I think that is a great example of the slop as well. Slop isn't just low quality, but it's an incredible volume and a huge amount of videos. Like there are channels posting 10 videos every day because you can just generate slop like it's just coming out of a a pipe.
And yeah, I I agree. I don't like it when AI content is given the same platform as real people doing real work that's completely uh authentic.
So yeah, I guess you can try and control what you consume, but how much responsibility can I have when I swipe to another video? I have no idea if it's going to be real or AI. I can't choose what goes on my feed. So I don't like that. Yeah. A lot of big platforms are prioritizing AI equal to real creators.
Okay. So, to dig a little bit deeper, we're going to bring in some articles and things that we've read. This finally leads us into what was probably the most interesting point that someone brought up, which is that it isn't just about content quality, okay? It's not just about these little pictures and personal usage, right? It's about how it's starting to affect the way that we think. Uh, one of our more tech savvy friends mentioned that when you're constantly exposed to this fast, simplified, and slightly superficial content, your expectations start to shift. You start to lose your tolerance for anything that requires deeper focus or sustained attention because your brain becomes used to these quick, easily digestible, easily creatable information. Right? this it felt like a subtle change at first, but I think it really has a huge impact over time. Now, I can say that I've definitely noticed that in myself personally, especially when I try to read something more detailed or complex. There's kind of this impulse to skim it, just kind of skip ahead or just move on entirely, just swipe through entirely or worse, just use chatpt to summarize the information. you know um almost every email platform has its own AI that will summarize information for you. Now I recently read this article in Time magazine uh where they were reviewing a study done by MIT and basically what happened is they took a group of people ages 18 to 40 and split them into three groups to write a very formal style SAT exam. That's kind of our high school exam that goes into college. One group used chatbt, one used Google search, and one used nothing at all. And MIT researchers found, and I quote, that of the three groups, chat GPT users had the lowest brain engagement and get this, consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. They went on to say that over the course of several months, ChachiBT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy and paste by the end of the study. Ouch. And in just a few months, right, that I mean, Chat GPT, we've been using that for a couple of years now. Imagine what it's doing to students who are even younger than us. I mean, I'm already getting a little lazy. Imagine what it's doing to students and people with no work ethic at all. Yeah, clearly people starting to use it as a crutch, something they can rely on. Why do all the thinking when the AI can think for me?
For me,
I think Yeah. Right. And I guess our brains are always looking for the laziest, most efficient uh route to do things. And
we call it efficiency, don't we?
Right. Yeah,
that's what I call it. I call it efficiency, but maybe it's being lazy,
right? Yeah. It is slightly concerning. Yeah. to think if you're at school and you need to be developing your critical thinking skills. You need to engage with your own thoughts, not be spoonfed things. Uh but yeah, I can criticize it all I like, but it's already affecting me. I'm becoming more impatient in terms of doing research. Sometimes I'll search for something in Google and if I don't get the answer immediately from Gemini chatbt, I'm like gh now I have to sift through lots of different links on Google. It feels like such a chore to go out and do my own research. So my tolerance for this deeper focus and sustained focus has definitely been lowered. uh I know I can just ask chat BT or Jim and I get an answer instantly even if it's not perfect. And then what's worse is that I've noticed that even the prompts that I write, the sort of questions I ask chat BT, those are getting simpler and lazier as well. I remember when I first tried chatbt, I would really like hold its hand and say alter the image so that the people are more realistic with wrinkles and textures on their clothes. But after using it for so long and realizing how capable it is, I just say make it more real and it just does it. So it's even affecting the way I talk to the AI is getting lazier because sometimes I don't even correct spelling mistakes and it still gets what I mean which is uh as impressive as it is terrifying. I think the other thing that's affecting the way I think is also affecting my vocabulary. Uh there are definitely words that I keep seeing from AI and now I think they're starting to enter the the lexicon generally as well. So the word gamecher comes up all the time now because AI seems to use it a lot and I think people read it and then they start using it as well. So I start seeing and reading it in articles and it makes me doubt whether it's written by a real person or whether it's AI. Delve is another word that I didn't hear that often. Then AI came out and then suddenly I see delve and dive into into topics. I see it in articles and in posts everywhere. So it's even affecting the way we communicate or at least the way I do.
That's crazy. Is AI affecting us or are we affecting AI? I guess that's the big question now at the end of the day.
So there you have it. There are definitely a lot of different perspectives on this and that it's exactly what makes it such a good cho topic for our B2 conversation at this level.
Yeah, let us know what you think in the comments. Uh you don't need to express yourself perfectly, but just try sharing your own experiences with AI or tell us if you feel the same way as we do or if you agree with any of the opinions you heard in this video.
Yeah. And if you're tired of all the AI slop, uh thank you for listening and studying with us here today. We are absolutely real people. Look, we have all 10 fingers,
right? AI can't do this.
AI can't do this. No. So, we'll see you very soon for another episode here on High Level Listening.
Bye-bye.