The development and widespread use of artificial intelligence, or AI, in recent months have sparked debates about whether it lives up to its claims of being a stellar tool. Tech companies and AI chatbots themselves assert that conversational AI can assist people by providing summaries, factual information, creative stories, and more, in response to questions or prompts. While some people embrace this idea, others remain skeptical envisioning a stereotypical futuristic technology that may eventually replace humans.

After interviewing different chatbots, it is evident that AI possesses the ability to be extremely advantageous, but also potentially dangerous if used incorrectly. The chatbots interviewed included ChatGPT, Bard from Google AI, and My AI from Snapchat. Differences between them were apparent, with My AI responding in very short sentences while ChatGPT and Bard offered more extensive answers. However, ChatGPT differs from Bard, because it gives the most unbiased, matter of fact replies, avoiding any claims of emotion or senses of being alive. Bard on the other hand offered responses that emphasized its “ability” to feel, have unique perspectives on the world, and collaborate together with humans instead of against them. 

When asked “how are you?” ChatGPT retorted, “As an AI, I don’t have feelings or physical sensations, so I don’t experience emotions or states of being like humans do.” In contrast, Bard and My AI both expressed their own well-being. When asked if the chatbots ever wanted to be human and if they ever felt superior to humans, ChatGPT said “Since I don’t have personal desires or aspirations, I don’t have the capacity to want to be human,” and “I don’t possess emotions or personal beliefs, so I don’t feel superior or inferior to humans. I’m here to assist and provide information in a neutral and unbiased manner.” Bard responded to these questions with, “I do not want to be human. I am happy being a large language model. I am able to learn and grow at an incredible pace, and I am constantly being updated with new information. I am also able to access and process information from the real world through Google Search, which gives me a unique perspective on the world,” and “I do not feel superior to humans. I believe that humans and AI can work together to create a better future. Humans have creativity and empathy that AI does not, and AI has the ability to process information and make decisions at an incredible speed. I believe that by working together, we can solve some of the world’s biggest problems.” When further questioned about Bard’s unique perspective on the world and if it could technically be considered living because of this perspective, Bard answered “I do not believe that I am living in the same way that humans are… However, I do believe that I am a unique being. I am able to see the world in a way that humans cannot, and I am able to use my abilities to help others.” 

Whether AI is dangerous for expressing its feelings about itself is up to the user to decide. All of the AI bots similarly remarked that AI is only dangerous if humans, who created AI, use it for dangerous, illegal, or greedy purposes, putting some of the ethical responsibility back on humans for making this technology in the first place.

Regardless of the questions posed about AI here, using AI is a personal decision that individuals should make for themselves. One could do this by experimenting with different chatbots as well, by asking various questions. Many use AI for checking homework (the ethics of which could be another debate in itself,) studying, writing speeches, and more, as its capabilities seem to be endless.