Fostering Connections in Santa Cruz through ChatGPT: A Unique UCSC Student Project

Article by Kehua Lei, Caeley Moushegian, Yash Singh, David Lee

In the one year since ChatGPT was released by OpenAI, tremendous advances in AI-led automation have raised fears of widespread unemployment in certain industries. A study using federal occupational data estimates that “80% of the U.S. workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by the introduction of LLMs, while approximately 19% of workers may see at least 50% of their tasks impacted” [1].

Emily Bender argues that “there’s too much effort on creating autonomous machines rather than trying to create machines useful for humans” [2]. So how should we begin to explore AI for goals like fostering human connection and gratitude?

Students in the Tech4Good Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) are exploring just that, looking to leverage the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly ChatGPT, to forge deeper connections within the Santa Cruz community. 

In their first exploratory concept, students in the Tech4Good Lab collected responses from UCSC students on “what they feel grateful for about Santa Cruz” among other gratitude prompts and fed these to ChatGPT to surface the unsung heroes in our community, reminiscent of the Hometown Heroes 2020 Awards by Santa Cruz Works. 

These notes have been organized in this dedicated website: gratitude.soe.ucsc.edu. Check it out to read notes of gratitude and discover the many unsung heroes in our community such as the park rangers, groundskeepers, writers, artists, musicians, tour guides, recreational instructors and communities, fast food and cafe staff, teachers, advisors, health workers, public transport staff, faith-based groups, roommates, housemates, partners, friends, and more that make life worth living :)

Fill out this survey to contribute your own gratitude note or to share your thoughts and participate in interviews to help us explore how AI can foster community connection and a culture of gratitude.

[1] Eloundou, T., Manning, S., Mishkin, P. and Rock, D., 2023. GPTs are GPTs: An early look at the labor market impact potential of large language models. https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130

[2] Elizabeth Weil. 2023. You are not a parrot. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/ article/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-emily-m-bender.htm