Dave Eggers told OpenAI staff that ChatGPT was ‘silencing an entire generation’
Author Dave Eggers, invited by Sam Altman to speak at OpenAI, sharply criticized ChatGPT, claiming it has made teachers' lives catastrophic and prevents students from learning to write.
Last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman invited author Dave Eggers to give a talk to about 200 company employees. Eggers, who has written countless novels, screenplays, and journalistic works, and founded several schools and nonprofits, was expected to offer tips on creativity and productivity. However, according to the Financial Times, he instead launched a sharp critique of the company's product.
Eggers told OpenAI staff: “The effect of ChatGPT on educators’ lives is catastrophic. Whether you intended to do it or not, you’ve made every teacher’s life infinitely more difficult than it was two years ago. So, just let that settle in… If students are using it to compose, which is the biggest tragedy of all, they’ll never learn to write. And their voice is stolen from them. They’ll never have the ability to say their truth and tell their own story. And that’s silencing an entire generation or two.”
Altman likely knew what he was getting into. Eggers’ best-selling novel The Circle is a scathing critique of the tech industry, and he has previously called AI-generated writing “pastiche nonsense.”
