An Artificial Intelligence (AI) system running on a 1997 Pentium II computer could outdo me this morning.
My brain is foggy. Seems a great time to write a blog post that will start haunting me in as little as a year with an astounding lack of foresight and general ignorance.
In other words, Happy Wednesday.
Have you guys heard of the new ChatGPT?
It’s an AI “Chatbot.” The Josh take on it: They “fed” it a huge amount of text, interaction, books, and all sorts of human knowledge, and now it spends it’s days freaking us out with it’s alarming skill at generating essays, poems, songs, technical papers, and whatever we ask it. It also “learns” from user interaction.
(Except it won’t make rude jokes. I’ve tried.)
“We must be respectful.”
“I’ll pour water on you, Hal, you 1984 hack. Your mother was a rock.”
If I have something on my mind, I like to clear the air. So, I just had a “conversation” with it.
Josh: Will ChatGPT outwrite me?
ChatGPT: As a language model, GPT-3 (ChatGPT) has been trained on a large dataset of text and can generate human-like text. However, it does not have the ability to understand the context or intent behind the text it generates. It simply generates text based on the input it receives and the patterns it has learned from its training data.
It's important to remember that GPT-3 is a model, and it can be used as a tool to generate text, but it can't generate ideas or be creative on it's own, is only a tool that can facilitate the text generation process, and the final decision, context and ideas come from the user who uses it.
It's unlikely that GPT-3 will "outwrite" you because it is simply a tool and the ultimate decision and context on the text generated is on the user.
Josh: Are you just flattering me?
ChatGPT: As an AI, I don't have personal emotions or the ability to flatter someone, so I can assure you that my previous statement about GPT-3 is based on its nature as a machine-learning model. The main use of GPT-3 is generate text, it can be used as a tool to generate text, but it can't generate ideas or be creative on its own, the final decision, context and ideas come from the user who uses it.
So, My statement that it is unlikely that GPT-3 will "outwrite" you because it is simply a tool and the ultimate decision and context on the text generated is on the user, is not a flattery, but a fact about GPT-3 as a language model AI.
Josh: Do these jeans make me look fat?
ChatGPT: (waiting)….(waiting)
An error occurred. If this issue persists please contact us through our help center at help.openai.com.
Ah HA! There is a socially inept engineer in the box! I KNEW IT!
Robot Takeover
Many think the Robots will take over. Perhaps they’re right.
That would be a major metal bummer, but - perhaps it’s irrelevant. Let’s travel to a future where the worst has happened.
I wake up. The little box tells me in an animatronic voice it’s time to do so. Oh wait, that’s just Alexa. Zip that time machine up a few years.
***
I wake up. The sky is an eerie red. Giant robots clank and clash across the hills. Electronic billboards scream poetic thoughts of the day, informing me of what happiness is. A little pod scurries across the floor, vacuuming up dust. (Well, at least one thing is cool.)
I roll over, and jot a few notes in my journal of thoughts I must express.
Another day in Utopia. Doesn’t seem that much different than 2023. I’m getting sick of these robots.
Somewhere outside, with a great shuddering crash, one falls to the ground. Something has killed it.
***
Art for Life’s Sake
Even if ChatGPT can eventually generate ideas and concepts on it’s own - so what?
If I have something to say, it doesn’t matter if someone else can say it better. It’s mine to say. Billions of men have told their lady “I love you” for the first time. Their statement is irrelevant, far removed from that holy moment when I tell her. They might as well not exist. (In fact, they’d better not.)
Both guitar and writing have caused much scrunching of my face over this idea.
If I play what’s on my heart, and the concept flows from the inner self (or God) to the outside world, things seem to work.
When I try to be clever, to look at the world and see what it “needs”, to add a “unique voice”, to do something fresh and newsworthy, angling for a byline in a music review, well, there’s always a ten year old kid in Japan outshredding me. YouTube was a game-changer in that regard. Now there’s ChatGPT.
Perhaps it will keep me honest in what I do, and why I do it.
Inner to Outer seems to work, and is sincere. Being slick for bragging rights always trips me up (especially if it works. Then I just turn into someone who gives advice on how to perpetuate the pretension.)
Answering the Call
To add another layer of “scrunchable” thoughts that screw up my face - what about serving?
I’m quite taken with the idea of service. What does the world need? Plus, it pays the bills. If an editor asks for an article about the Orion Nebula, does ChatGPT put me out of work?
If a blind person would like an alt-text description of the Orion Nebula, and ChatGPT can whip it up in ten seconds, am I irrelevant?
Maybe. But let’s go crate-digging for a minute.
In the Record Shop
It’s a sunny day in Richmond, VA in 2019. The world is simpler then, but I don’t know it. I’m “crate digging”, sorting through bins of old records. The dollar bin has netted me favorites before. That dusty, scratched Thelonious Monk album blew my mind.
Today the pickings are slim. A 1960 pressing of some forgotten commercial creation has accidentally memorable liner notes:
Do you like music? If you like music, you’ll love this record. Nathan Nashville sure can sing. You’ll love it.
Cue the Napoleon Dynamite voice. Of course I like music. Idiot. I’m in a freakin’ record store on a nice day outside, okay? Gosh!
I put it back, and picked some imperfect blues instead. With plenty of “good music” around, I’m looking for something I like, not “the best” (as if that’s a thing.) Something that speaks to me. Even among all the humans making music, only certain ones will do.
That blues musician’s job was to make music. But they had something to say, too. The world didn’t need it - at all. But the world likes it. And it adds.
Take that, Robot
Maybe the robots will take over. Maybe we’re doomed. (Although I suspect the coffee will get me first.)
But I don’t write because it hasn’t been said. I write because I have something to say. The presence of other writers is irrelevant to my expression.
Besides - if Utopia arrives, somebody’s got to tweet about the annoying perfection of the robots.
A Case in Point
A friend of mine just died. She had a good long life, but I’ll miss her terribly. The thoughts are still swirling around. The tribute must be fitting. For now, a recording of her playing drifts through the air.
I still don’t know what to say. For now, silence is what she’d write into a piece.
Breaking ChatGPT
Wow, condolences!