Easy access to information and use of digital tools deeply change our way of writing and thinking, to the detriment of authentic imperfection.
The way to access information and produce content has changed deep in a few decades. In the 1990s and 2000s, research was still going through paper dictionaries and encyclopedias on CD-ROM as Encarta. The learning effort consisted in exploring, crossing sources, building its understanding.
With the advent of the Internet, then the emergence of generative artificial intelligences, access to knowledge has accelerated, simplified, smoothed. The texts are becoming more and more correct, standardized, homogeneous.
This technical evolution in depth modifies the relationship to writing, critical thinking and individual expression.
A generation between two worlds
Before the generalization of rapid access to information, learned involved time, stages, perseverance. Seeking information required to travel several documents, to confront points of view, to link different sources to build a solid understanding. This approach developed critical spirit, rigor and intellectual autonomy.
Technological acceleration has changed this relationship with knowledge. Immediate access to content has established an instantaneous response logic, where efficiency takes precedence over the reflection effort. The progressive path to knowledge tends to disappear in favor of rapid results, often accepted without questioning.
This shift deeply transforms attitude towards information. The ability to doubt, to seek, to reformulate by yourself gives way to an expectation of rapid, formatted, ready to be used solutions without being questioned. This evolution directly influences the way of thinking, writing and interacting with the world.
The temptation of the perfect text
With the development of automatic correction tools and generative artificial intelligence, writing tends to normalize. Grammatical errors disappear, the formulations are optimized, the texts become more fluid, more homogeneous. This technical development responds to a legitimate demand for clarity and readability, but it also introduces a less visible risk; that of producing content disconnected from all individuality.
Smoothed by the algorithms, the text gradually loses the roughness which carried the singularity of its author. The hesitations, the awkwardness, the imprecise turns, as many signs of a moving thought, are erased in favor of standard editorial models.
As writing becomes more impeccable, it tends to uniform. The texts are similar, personal styles fade, the voice specific to each author becomes more difficult to perceive. This normalization, presented as progress, deeply modifies the relationship to written expression, favoring compliance with an implicit standard to the detriment of authenticity.
Imperfection as a sign of sincerity
Human writing naturally carries the marks of imperfection. The hesitations in the choice of words, formulation errors, sometimes awkward constructions are visible traces of a thought under development. They reflect an effort to reflect, an attempt to express complex ideas with limited means.
In an environment where digital tools tend to erase these imperfections, their presence becomes a distinctive sign. An imperfect text, when it is sincere, retains the voice of its author, his own rhythm, his personal nuances. It testifies to an interior research, a desire to express without masking, without systematically calibrating the expression to respond to external standards.
Far from being a defect, imperfection contributes to the authenticity of the exchange. She recalls that writing is not a product to make impeccable, but a living act, which engages sensitivity, intelligence and sometimes even the weaknesses of the one who writes.
How should we use Chatgpt?
Artificial intelligence tools like Chatgpt offer considerable possibilities to assist writing, organize ideas or accelerate access to certain knowledge. Their use is now imposed in many areas, from the production of content research content. However, their technical power should not obscure their nature of assistance tool, not substitution.
Use Chatgpt in a relevant way implies maintaining a critical distance from the texts it generates. Artificial intelligence produces coherent and structured formulations, but it does not think, no doubt, does not experience any interior nuance. She assembles information based on linguistic probabilities without experiencing the complexity of the subjects covered.
The user remains responsible for reflection, verification, interpretation and personal style. Rather than fully delegating the writing to the tool, the challenge is to integrate your capacities into an active process: using it to clarify an idea, enrich a plan, find alternative formulations, while retaining control of the substance and its own voice.
Making Chatgpt a partner, not an author, helps preserve the authenticity of writing, in a context where algorithmic standardization tends to erase differences.
The responsibility of institutions, schools and families
Early exposure to digital assistance tools profoundly transforms the way in which the young generations are confronted with information and written expression. Adolescents and children today have access to systems capable of producing coherent, argued, corrected texts, without always having the intellectual tools necessary to analyze what they read or use.
The very nature of learning is at stake. The appropriation of knowledge, the construction of a personal thinking and the effort of autonomous expression may be weakened if these tools are used without critical understanding of their functioning and their limits.
The educational environment thus takes on a decisive dimension. School, family and institutional managers, as an intellectual and cultural training, directly influence the way these technologies are perceived and integrated.
The presence of generative tools does not erase the fundamental need to learn to structure a thought, to formulate a clean idea, to question the validity of information. The ability to maintain a critical distance from ready-to-use content becomes a skill as essential as reading or writing themselves.
The way in which the young generations will seize these technologies will therefore depend largely on the context in which they are introduced; A context where the speed of access to information does not replace the effort of understanding, and where digital assistance does not remove the need to build a personal look at what is produced.
The error, engine of truth
There was a time when the truth stood in marble columns, frozen in dictionaries. Today, she circulates, blurs, corrects herself, sometimes contradicts herself. Imperfection is not the enemy of knowledge, it is its secret workshop. Wanting to erase it is dreaming of dead knowledge. Accepting the error is choosing to move forward.
More than ever, we must prefer burning questions to cold answers.
