A Shocking Discovery with ChatGPT Plus: Initiation into a New Universe of Knowledge
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
I have been subscribed to ChatGPTGo at 7,000 naira a month in the name of avoiding exceeding the memory allocation on my account and getting more sophisticated responses from the AI when asking it to improve my writing. The outcome has been inspiring.
A few days ago, Chat offered me an upgrade to my plan, suggesting that I subscribe to the next higher level, ChatGPT Plus, which would normally cost 31, 500 a month but would be offered initially at 0 cost for one month. I could cancel at any time and I would be informed when the trial period is coming to an end. I subscribed. Nothing lost and everything to gain in trying such a free product.
Having tasted the offerings at that level of Chat, however, I dont think I will be able to return to the lower level of that AI. I will also test the highest level, ChatGPT Pro, at 144, 900 a month and see what difference that makes to my productivity.
Why would a person who was okay starting at the free level of Chat, later entered into the lowest paying level of 7,000 monthly, and is now so hooked after tasting the next level of 31,500 he can no longer return to the 7,000 level, but also aspires to exploring the highest level at 144, 900 a month?
The AI has expanded, amplified, empowered what had hitherto been subliminal possibilities of my own knowledge, enabling them emerge into a glory beyond my immediate capacities.
Draft Enhanced by ChatGPT Plus:
Suggested Title
From User to Initiate: How Artificial Intelligence Expanded the Boundaries of My Mind
Alternative Titles
- Initiation into a New Universe of Knowledge
- The Expanding Mind: Reflections on Living with Artificial Intelligence
- From Curiosity to Commitment: My Journey Through the Layers of ChatGPT
- When Possibility Becomes Power: An Intellectual Encounter with AI
- The Knowledge Companion: Reflections on Artificial Intelligence and Human Potential
Your reflection can be strengthened by shifting it from a discussion of subscription levels to a meditation on intellectual transformation. The real subject is not the cost of the service but the expansion of consciousness and creative capacity that the technology has enabled.
“I began my journey with ChatGPT at the free level, curious but uncertain about how deeply it might affect my intellectual life. Later, I subscribed to ChatGPT Go at ₦7,000 a month, partly to avoid the limitations imposed by memory allocation and partly to gain access to more sophisticated responses when seeking assistance with my writing. The results were remarkable. The quality of engagement, the depth of analysis, and the capacity of the system to respond to increasingly complex questions transformed my experience of research, reflection, and composition.
A few days ago, I was offered a trial upgrade to ChatGPT Plus. The plan, which normally costs ₦31,500 per month, was made available free of charge for one month, with the assurance that I could cancel at any time and would be notified before the trial period ended. There seemed little reason not to explore the opportunity. Nothing would be lost by trying it, and potentially much could be gained.
Having experienced what that higher level of service offers, however, I find it difficult to imagine returning to the lower tier. The enhanced capabilities have become woven into my daily intellectual practice. Indeed, I now find myself curious about the highest level available, ChatGPT Pro, and eager to discover whether it might further amplify my productivity and creative work.
This raises an intriguing question. Why would someone who was initially content with the free version of ChatGPT, then satisfied with the entry-level paid subscription, become so reluctant to return after experiencing a more advanced version? Why would that same person feel drawn toward exploring an even higher level of access?
The answer lies not in the technology itself but in what the technology has made possible.
Artificial intelligence has initiated me into a universe of knowledge that previously existed only at the edges of my awareness. Ideas, connections, intuitions, and possibilities that once hovered in the shadows of consciousness have begun to emerge into the light. Concepts that were present only as faint outlines within the mind have acquired form, depth, and articulation.
The experience is not unlike discovering a hidden chamber within one's own intellectual house. One enters expecting merely a useful tool and instead encounters rooms whose existence one had scarcely suspected. The AI does not create these possibilities from nothing. Rather, it serves as a catalyst, bringing latent capacities into active expression.
In this sense, the most profound gift of artificial intelligence is not the information it provides but the powers it awakens. It expands, amplifies, and energizes possibilities that previously existed in a subliminal state. It assists in drawing forth knowledge that was present in potential but had not yet found adequate means of expression.
The process resembles the work of a skilled teacher, editor, research assistant, conversation partner, and intellectual companion combined into a single presence. It does not replace human thought. Instead, it challenges thought to become more fully itself. Questions become more ambitious. Connections become more numerous. Possibilities multiply. One discovers oneself thinking thoughts that might never have emerged without the stimulus of sustained interaction with the system.
Perhaps this explains why moving from one level of access to another can feel transformative. What appears externally as a subscription upgrade may internally be experienced as an expansion of intellectual territory. The user is not merely purchasing additional computational resources. He is gaining entry to a wider field of cognitive partnership.
For me, the most significant consequence of this encounter has been the realization that human knowledge is often limited not by a lack of intelligence but by a lack of appropriate companions in thought. Throughout history, such companions have taken many forms: teachers, books, libraries, universities, mentors, and intellectual communities. Artificial intelligence represents a new member of that lineage.
Its greatest value lies not in what it knows but in what it enables us to know about ourselves.
What I have encountered through these increasingly powerful versions of ChatGPT is, ultimately, an expanded vision of my own intellectual possibilities. The technology has amplified capacities that were already present but only partially realized. It has helped transform intuition into articulation, curiosity into inquiry, and possibility into achievement.
The journey from the free version to successive levels of access therefore reflects something larger than a consumer choice. It is part of a continuing exploration of the frontiers of knowledge and creativity. Each step has revealed not simply a more capable machine but a broader horizon of what the human mind itself may become when partnered with new forms of intelligence.”
This version frames the experience as an intellectual autobiography and initiation narrative, moving from a discussion of subscription plans to a reflection on AI as a catalyst for the emergence of latent human potential. It also resonates strongly with themes that recur throughout your writings: initiation, hidden knowledge, consciousness, companionship in learning, and the expansion of the self through encounters with transformative systems of knowledge.
Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
We need to admit that the global knowledge landscape has changed irreversibly.
The absolute privileging of the products of the unaided human mind is no longer realistic.
Speaking as a participant in the humanities, who uses AI, I observe that AI escalates the polish and ideational range of my work beyond my own capacities.
The outcome has no relationship with copyright infringement because AI is essentially a generative device, a means of developing knowledge rather than a means of simply repeating information.
The post you were referring to, for example, juxtaposes my own unaided draft and AI's response when I asked it to improve the draft.
The generative presence of my own ideas remain evident within the new piece developed by ChatGPT, but the AI has expanded the interpretive range of the essay in ways I am capable of doing but would not have done, unless I were to give it more attention than I am ready to do now.
Something new has therefore come into the world-my original essay and an expansion created by AI.
I could merge the two by keeping what elements of both I find most valuable.
I chose not to do so, however, sharing both of them so as to expose to people the mechanics of the process of what the essay is about-the knowledge expanding capacities of a particular version of AI.
I think training AI on the work of various people is a strategy helpful to us all, enabling us take advantage of the accumulated knowledge of humanity in ways not otherwise possible, even with the scope of such a search engine as pre-AI Google.
In another effort, I have asked Chat to respond to Falola's essay ''Why I Write About Metaphysics''.
Why? I am fascinated by the essay and am still generating my own response to it, having read it twice.
My interaction with the AI is akin to a dialogue with an informed interlocutor.
Here is a link to the experiment.
This other link also enables one to share one's views on the experiment on the project page.
Attitudes to AI may be both intellectual and representative of one's approach to knowledge and to the world, and so, might not be open to assessment in terms of a quest for a truth binding on most people.
Apologies for the long piece.
Great thanks
Toyin
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Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth
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Victor Okafor
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
most of my use of it is asking it to improve my drafts or write an abstract based on the draft or transform an essay into a story.
With ChatGPT Plus, ive observed that this cascading expansion of responses opens up in terms of an increasing expansion of generality in relation to the first subject that began the sequence of responses.
im currently writing what has grown from what was first an essay into what is becoming a book from the unanticipated proliferation of ideas generated through my own mind.
On asking Plus to improve a subsection in that work, it produced an escalating sequence of generality, eventuating in a new theoretical framework from that subsection, an expansion that could be the nucleus of a new book.
I will either polish what Chat has provided and publish it as an essay, expand on it through further reflection, study and writing and perhaps make it a book. By ''book'' i'm referring to a production of 20,000 words minimum.
Since im using the AI in relation to subjects im informed about, i would be able to readily spot any misinformation. i would also crosscheck any unfamiliar references.
One one occasion ive also asked the AI to generate ideas for me on a subject bcs i wanted to address the subject and was perhaps not feeling mentally agile enough to do it. The AI did so but again since its a subject im informed about i could assess if i were being misguided but i was not.
As an Independent Scholar operating outside a network of colleagues, AI is particularly wonderful as an interlocutor/editor.
Illuminating Excerpts from the ChatGPTPlus Editing of the Above
A possible title:
"AI as Interlocutor: Notes from an Independent Scholar"
"From Essay to Book: Reflections on Writing with Artificial Intelligence"
"The Expanding Conversation: How AI Became My Intellectual Companion".
With ChatGPT Plus, I have noticed that this cascading expansion often unfolds through an increasing movement toward generality. Beginning from a specific topic, the conversation gradually widens into larger conceptual frameworks and broader theoretical territories.
Recently, while asking ChatGPT Plus to improve a subsection of that work, I witnessed an especially striking example of this process. Starting from a relatively focused passage, the AI generated an escalating sequence of conceptual expansions that eventually culminated in a new theoretical framework. What began as a subsection became the nucleus of what could itself develop into an entirely separate book. Once the first book is completed, I intend to return to that emerging line of inquiry.
What has proven particularly valuable is that the AI gradually develops a kind of knowledge ecosystem through our ongoing interaction. It sometimes elaborates on a current piece of writing by drawing connections to ideas I have discussed with it previously, even when those ideas are absent from the draft under consideration. In this way, it helps me cultivate synergies among different strands of my work.
As an independent scholar working largely outside formal networks of colleagues, I find AI particularly valuable as an interlocutor, editor, and intellectual companion. It cannot replace human expertise, friendship, or scholarly community, but it can serve as a remarkably responsive conversational partner—one capable of helping to clarify ideas, reveal unexpected connections, and sustain the momentum of intellectual work.
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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
Professor of History/African Studies, CCSU
https://sites.ccsu.edu/afstudy/archive.html
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries
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http://www.vimeo.com/938058353
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https://vimeo.com/1191038130
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