Unspoken Human Truths

Among the many definitions of an ‘insight’, my personal favourite is that it is an “unspoken human truth that sheds new light on the problem”. Mostly because 'human' takes centre stage, and I’m a sucker for emotions, culture and everything that isn’t shallow (just like your everyday Ali). 

So you can understand my predicament when it came to using AI tools to uncover human insights. My first tries were very much like everyone else’s where I expected to tool to be ‘intelligent’ enough to give me exactly what which is why the results were as generic as the prompts I entered. 

It was not until I came across this post by Julian Cole that I truly understood how we can use the tool for insights. 

Now while Chat GPT will not throw you an insight just the way you want it, it can be a good starting point to uncover insights. I have been using Cole’s method to trick the tool into uncovering these tension statements that I either amend or negate to arrive at an insight. 

For instance, I received the following statements when GPT was prompted about writing the opposite of clichés regarding ‘eyewear’:

1. "Eyes are the curtains to the mind."
2. "Sunglasses: the understated accessory."
3. " Putting on your glasses is like losing new perspective "
4. "Embracing the light behind transparent frames."
5. "Believing is seeing, with or without glasses."

While most of these don’t make sense, I focused on the words 'curtains', 'perspective' and 'seeing' which led me to: every time you see something from someone else’s perspective, you enrich your vision. 

Now this is, arguably, a human insight that could be used for eyewear, photography, anything to do with ‘seeing’ really, and it came out of a language learning model – how silly of me to be presumptuous about these things. Another thing that GPT 4 proves to be really handy at is for uncovering data that can be used to support insights – until September 2023 anyway. 

If I were a betting man, I’d wager that it will evolve to be not dissimilar to the way people use Google search. Everyone will have their own style that will be common enough to cause ‘GPT’ to turn into a verb but also unique enough to want to do it themselves. 

The way GPT may be different than a harmless Google Search and the bone of contention that presents itself here is that this is probably the first time humans will be handing over something that was exclusive to us – thinking. Plot that along with Apple’s VR headsets, the Metaverse, and one could argue the reducing/altering role we play in our own lives as we go from being active to passive. 

It would be interesting to see if there would be any stigmas associated with using GPT to mine insights. Do insights lose their credibility if their source were to be revealed as AI-generated? Should we hit ‘Alt+Tab’ every time someone passes by? Is there shame in admitting the use of AI to help you ‘think’? 

Was this article written using AI? Would that make it more or less true? 

Would that make it more or less human?