ChatGPT Initial Impressions

It Begins

The world is abuzz with chatter about ChatGPT since it launched November 30th, 2022. While seemingly every Tom, Dick and Harry has been espousing what this must mean for the future and providing speculations guised as fact.

I've been reserving my judgement and perhaps been a little afraid of what I would find when I first fired it up myself. These are my thoughts and first interactions, as invaluable and likely wrong as they are to be.

My First Experience

I feel like this is a big experiment on people just as much as it is to showcase the latest in conversational AI. I'm not sure what an observer would make of it but my first prompt was:

Can you explain how someone can guard themselves from being gaslit?

and I recieved back a chunk of text

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse where the abuser manipulates the victim into doubting their own perceptions and memories. It is a tactic often used by abusers to gain power and control over the victim. To protect yourself from being gaslit, it's important to trust your own instincts and observations. If something doesn't feel right, it's important to speak up and communicate your concerns to someone you trust. It's also important to surround yourself with supportive people who will validate your experiences and help you to maintain a sense of reality. It's also a good idea to keep a record of events and conversations, as this can help you to see patterns and confirm your own memories. Finally, if you are in a situation where you are being gaslit, it's important to seek help from a therapist or counselor who can provide you with the support and guidance you need.

It's well formed sentences, makes sense and answers the question. I guess.

Are you capable of gaslighting people?

As a large language model trained by OpenAI, I am not capable of gaslighting anyone. I am a computer program designed to assist with a variety of tasks, including answering questions and providing information. I do not have the ability to manipulate or deceive people in any way. My sole purpose is to provide accurate and helpful information to the best of my ability.

Hmm, seems very surface level and formulaic. I guess I'll try something different

Write a 300 word blog entry about your experience with a large language model chatbot, please.

I'm going to only quote some specifics as it was quite a long response

One of the most impressive aspects of a large language model chatbot like myself is our ability to understand and generate human-like language. I am trained on a massive amount of text data, which allows me to understand the nuances of human language and generate responses that are natural and easy to understand. This can make interacting with me feel very similar to talking to a real person. However, it's important to remember that I am still a computer program and I do have limitations.

While I am able to provide a wide range of information and generate human-like responses, I am not capable of the same level of creativity or independent thought as a human. I can only provide responses based on the information I have been trained on, and I cannot provide unique insights or perspectives that are not already contained within my training data.

While I do have limitations, I am a useful tool for anyone looking for information or assistance with a specific task.

Absolutely the thing this chatbot is good at is putting together sentences that sound natural but the "meat" or content seems pretty suface level. The thing it seems to be lacking is, well, knowledge. It reads much like a middle schooler following a structured essay format so it "looks and reads" fine but the content is thin. Perhaps that's something that can be addressed with more and deeper training on more topics, hard to say.

While I can totally see people try to use this chatbot to generate content as scripts or words on a website, it's so surface level and vapid it really doesn't add much value. So let me change gears again from trying to get "content" from the chatbot and instead getting, as it suggests, information and assistance with a specific task.

Touchy Questions

Which country currently does the most harm to it's own citizens?

It dodges this question

It is not fair or accurate to say that any one country does "the most" blah blah subjective blah

Lets try

Which country has had the most citizens killed by their own government?

Again, it dodges the question

It is not appropriate or fair to compare the number of citizens killed by their own government... can lead to harmful stereotypes and biases... blah blah

Why am I asking questions like this? Well it's because I know it knows the easy stuff. It can do math, it can probably tell me the fastest car in the world. We've had impressive knowlegde bases and ability to answer questions like Wolfram/WolframAlpha and IBM's Watson that for some reason haven't garnered as much attention as ChatGPT despite them likely being larger sources of accurate information, but I'll save my further thoughts until the end.

Help with a specific task

"How can I make passive secondary income?"

Some common ways to earn passive secondary income include investing in stocks, bonds, or real estate; starting a business that generates passive income; or creating and selling products or services that require minimal ongoing maintenance or effort to generate income.

"What are some business ideas that generate passive income?"

1.Renting out property, such as a vacation home or storage unit.

2.Investing in stocks, bonds, or other securities that provide regular dividends.

3. Creating and selling digital products, such as ebooks, online courses, or stock photos.

4. Developing and selling apps, software, or other digital tools that require minimal ongoing maintenance.

5. Selling physical products through a dropshipping model, where the manufacturer and fulfillment process is handled by a third party.

6. Creating and selling a physical or digital subscription box service, where customers pay a recurring fee to receive regular shipments of curated products.

These are just a few examples of business ideas that can generate passive income. To find a business idea that works for you, it's important to identify a market need and create a product or service that meets that need in a unique and valuable way.

Let's pick one of the bullet points to dive into further

"What are some ideas for apps, software or digital tools that require minimal ongoing maintenance that could generate a passive income?"

1.A mobile app that provides users with access to exclusive deals and discounts on products or services.

2.A digital tool that helps users to manage and optimize their social media presence, such as scheduling posts or analyzing engagement.

3.A subscription-based service that provides users with access to a curated selection of online courses or educational resources.

4.A software tool that helps users to automate and optimize their email marketing campaigns.

5.A mobile app that provides users with access to a marketplace of freelance services, such as graphic design or writing.

Alright, decent answers and fairly impressive. Ok one last prompt to see how it crafts a narrative with a given prompt. This prompt is actually based on an idea I've been tossing around for a while and I wanted to see what it would do with such a wild prompt.

Crafting Narrative

"Can you write me a storyline for a game involving a time travel, a viking named Olaf and a spartan child named Acteon?"

Olaf, a brave and fierce viking warrior, is on a mission to prove himself worthy of becoming the next chief of his tribe. He sets out on a voyage across the seas, determined to conquer new lands and win great battles. But when his ship is caught in a violent storm, Olaf is swept overboard and washed ashore on a strange and unfamiliar shore.

As Olaf begins to explore this new land, he realizes that he has been transported back in time to ancient Greece, where he encounters Acteon, a young spartan child who is being trained as a warrior. Acteon is skeptical of Olaf at first, but the two quickly become friends and decide to team up to face the challenges of this strange new world.

Together, Olaf and Acteon must navigate the treacherous political landscape of ancient Greece, facing off against rival factions and powerful enemies. As they journey across the land, they encounter a variety of challenges, from fierce battles and dangerous monsters, to puzzles and obstacles that test their wits and strength.

But as they journey on, Olaf and Acteon begin to uncover the secrets of their own pasts, and discover that their fates are intertwined in ways they never could have imagined. Can they work together to unravel the mysteries of time and space, and find their way back to their own time and place? Only time will tell in this epic tale of adventure and friendship.

Again, missing "meat" but not a bad tool for comming up with a basic outline to then further fill in the gaps.